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MY    LIFE    AND    FRIENDS 


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Frontispiece. 


MY  LIFE  &  FRIENDS 

A   PSYCHOLOGIST'S  MEMORIES 


BY 


JAMES    SULLY,    LL.D. 

Emeritus  Professor  of  Philosophy. 

University  College,  London, 

and  Author  of 

"Studies  in  Childhood,"  "Outlines  of 

Psycholog>',"  etc.,  etc. 


WITH    17   ILLUSTRATIONS 


E.    P.    DUTTON     &     COMPANY 
681  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


{AH  rights  ycscrveci) 

PRINTED  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 


CONTENTS 

PART    I 

MEMORIES   OF  MY  LIFE 

CHAPTER    I 

PAGE 

Early  Recollections        .......         '6 

Bridgwater — Ancestry — Sects  and  Parties — Early  Mem- 
ories— Christmastide — Visitors — In  Chapel  —  Quakers — 
My  Father 

CHAPTER   II 

Schooldays       .........       26 

Dame-schools — St.  Francis — Home  Life — ^Watchet — The 
Somersetshire  Farmer — Reading — Music — Guy  Fawkes 
Day — Macready — Leaving  School — Charles  Dickens — 
Religious  Experience — Gerald  Massey — The  Princeites — 
Politics — Plymouth  Brethren— Leaving  Home 

CHAPTER   III 
Student  Years  :  London  .         .         .         .         .         .61 

Dr.  Angus — College  Debates — Pulpit  Orators — St.  James's 
Hall  Concerts — Garibaldi — John  Stuart  Mill — Leaving 
College 

CHAPTER   IV 

Student  Ye^uis  :  Gottingen  in  the  Sixties      ...       77 

The  German  Tongue — Old  Gottingen — The  Students — 
The  Promenade — Heinrich  Ewald — Christmas  in  Germany 
— Culture — Duelling — Prussian  Officers — A  Triad — Her- 
mann Lotze — i^sthetics — The  Old  Spirit  and  the  New 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   V 

A  First  Wandering  ....... 

Halle  —  The  Kommers  —  Dresden  —  A  Thunderstorm  — 
Nuremberg — The  Tyrol — Across  the  Mountains — Venice — 
The  Alps 

CHAPTER   VI 

Beginning  Work      ......         j,^         . 

Change  of  Plans — A  Royal  Commission — Literature — John 
Morley — Proof-reading — The  Saturday  Review — Psycho- 
logy— Berlin — The  Crown  Princess — Return  to  Work — 
"  Sensation  and  Intuition  " 

CHAPTER  VII 

Recuperative  Italy  ....... 

Naples — Pompeii — Capri — ^Difficulties  at  an  Inn — ^Rome — 
Homeward 

CHAPTER   VIII 
In  Full  Work  ........ 


The  Daily  Task  —  Charles  Darwin  —  Mrs.  Hertz  — 
"  Pessimism  "  —  London  Noises  —  Hampstead  —  Canon 
Ainger  —  Chums  —  Lecturing  and  Examining  —  Stanley 
Jevons 

CHAPTER   IX 

In  Full  Work  (continued)         ......     182 

Alexander  Bain — Bain's  Successor — Politics  Misplaced — 
Books  on  Psychology — Lectures  at  Cambridge — The  Nine- 
teenth Century — Dreaming  and  Imagining — Experiments 
in  Fiction 

CHAPTER   X 

Outside  Interests   ........     198 

Culture  at  Hampstead — The  Metaphysical  Society — Sir 
William  Jenner — Foote's  Case — Bradluugh's  Case — Recre- 
ations— The  Theatre 


CONTENTS  ix 

CHAPTER  XI 

PAGB 

Outside  Interests  (continued)  .....     213 

R.  L.  Stevenson — A  Glacier  Accident — Norway — Various 
Friends — Colonel  Osborn 

CHAPTER   XII 

SlACKENING   THE    PaCE         .  .  .  .  .  .  .       228 

The  Grote  Chair  —  The  Congress  of  Psychology  —  Val 
d'Anniviers — University  CoUege-^ — Recognition — "  Studies 
of  Childhood "—"  Essay  on  Laughter  "—The  British 
Academy — Alexander  Bain 

CHAPTER  XIII 
The  Thinning  of  the  Ranks   ......     246 

Lady  Welby — Shadworth  Hodgson — Sicily 


PART  II 

PEN-PORTRAITS  OF  FRIENDS 

CHAPTER   XIV 
George  Eltot  in  the  Seventies       .....     259 
George  Henry  Lewes — Tennyson — Imagery 

CHAPTER  XV 

James  Cotter  Morison     . 267 

The  "  Life  of  St.  Bernard  " — Conversation— Hospitality 
—"The  Service  of  Man" 

CHAPTER   XVI 

Henry  Sidgwick       ........     277 

The  Moral  Sciences  Tripos — Affability — Conversation — 
Temperament — Last  Days 

1* 


X  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XVII 

PAQB 

Hekbert  Spencer     ........     288 

The  Boarding-house — The  Athenaeum  Club — Foreign 
Appreciation — Synthetic  Philosophy 

CHAPTER  XVIII 
Leslie  Stephen        ........     29d 

At  Home — ^The  Cornhill  Magazine — James  Payn — ^The 
Sunday  Tramps — Routes — Refreshments — Composition  of 
the  Tramps — Charles  Darwin — Swiss  Memories — Person- 
ality 

CHAPTER    XIX 
William  James  ........     316 

"  Principles  of  Psychology  "  —  Political£6ympathies — 
"  Pragmatism  " 

CHAPTER    XX 
George  Meredith     ........     32S 

Meredith's  Talk — Nationality — ^Declining  Years — Future 
of  England — Raillery — Farewell 

Index      .         .         .         .         .         .         .      '  .         .         .     33ft 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


JAMES   8UIXY       .             .             .        ,    . 

Frontispiece 

THE      CORNHILL      (MARKET       PLACE       AND       CHXJBCH),       BRIDG- 

WATER            .... 

Facing  page 

6 

THE   RIVER,    BRIDGWATER     . 

40 

GOTTINGEN            ..... 

78 

PROFESSOR    EWALD      .... 

86 

ALEXANDER   BAIN         . 

86 

ARTHUR    KINGLAKE      .... 

130 

GEORGE   CROOM   ROBERTSON 

182 

LADY   WELBY     ..... 

250 

GEORGE   ELIOT  ..... 

260 

GEORGE   HENRY   LEWES 

262 

JAMES    COTTER   MORISON       . 

268 

HENRY   SIDGWICK         .... 

278 

HERBERT   SFENCEB       .... 

288 

LESLIE   STEPHEN            .... 

296 

WILLIAM   JAMES             .... 

816 

OSOBOB   MEREDITH      .... 

•         •         »f 

824 

AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

The  Author  has  been  greatly  helped  in  the 
work  of  reading  the  proofs  of  this  book  by 
the  generous  aid  of  his  friend  Professor 
Carveth  Read. 

Chapter  IV  has  already  appeared  in  the 
Hibbert  Journal  in  1915. 


xii 


PART    I 
MEMORIES   OF   MY    LIFE 


MY  LIFE   AND    FRIENDS 

CHAPTER    I 

EARLY  RECOLLECTIONS 

Ix  the  forties,  when  I  came  upon  the  scene, 
Bridgwater  was  by  no  means  an  imposing-looking 
town.  Whether  one  reached  it  from  the  big 
energetic  "  Bristol  city  "  or  from  the  more  elegant 
and  aristocratic  city  of  Exeter,  farther  to  the  west, 
it  was  apt  to  appear  poor,  if  not  mean.  Depression 
of  the  eye  was  likely  to  be  followed  by  that  of 
the  lungs,  for  the  air  was  heavy  and  relaxing,  so 
that  even  local  doctors  have  been  kno^^'n  to  resort 
to  the  self-denying  ordinance  of  advising  their 
patients  to  get  out  of  it  as  often  as  possible. 
A  longer  inspection,  however,  was  calculated  to 
modify  a  first  hasty  condemnation  of  the  old  to^Mi. 
If  its  air  was  a  little  soporific,  it  was  flushed  now 
and  again  with  quickening  currents  borne  by  the 
rushing  tides  of  the  river  from  the  near-h^ng 
Bristol  Channel.  If  the  broad  sweep  of  more  or 
less  marshy  flats  to  the  south  and  east  bred  ague 
and  other  evil  things,  these  "  moors  "  were  a 
fattening  pastui'age  which  made  the  town  a  mart 
for  excellent  butter,  cheese,  and  other  commodities. 


4  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIPINDS 

The  muddy  river  itself,  vv^hich  looked  the  picture 
of  uiiYvholesome  stagnation  when  the  tide  was 
low,  contributed  to  our  welfare.  Spring-tides 
lifted  the  water  to  so  high  a  level  that  ships  of 
a  respectable  tonnage  could  reach  the  docks  of 
our  port. 

The  trade  of  our  tovvii  included  not  merely  the 
importation  of  coal  from  South  Wales,  together 
with  tim.ber,  artificial  manures,  and  other  things 
from,  more  distant  shores,  but  the  exportation  of 
corn  and  other  agricultural  produce.  The  lan- 
guages of  Frenchmen,  Norwegians,  and  other 
foreign  sailors  were  frequently  to  be  heard  about 
the  docks,  and  I  first  tried  my  tongue  at  conver- 
sational French  with  some  of  the  sailors  who 
wandered  about  the  town  in  low  caps  and  baggy 
linen  trousers  hawking  strings  of  onions.  By  the 
earl}'^  forties  Bridgwater  iiad  got  linked  up  with 
the  Bristol  and  Exeter  Railway  ;  and  as  people 
had  not  yet  begun  to  bother  their  heads  about 
cutting  a  Severn  tunnel,  the  owners  of  the 
coasting  vessels,  w^hich  made  up  most  of  the 
shipping  on  the  Parret,  had  a  good  time. 

It  is  only  the  ignorant  stranger,  glancing  at  our 
town  from  a  railway  carriage,  that  takes  the 
country  to  be  fiat ;  the  native  knows  that  it  loves 
and  clings  to  the  hills.  As  soon  as  you  reach  the 
end  of  the  town  going  west  or  north-west  you  will 
come  upon  a  quite  respectable  natural  hill.  These 
adjacent  modest  elevations  suffice  for  views  of  a 
wide  expanse  of  country,  with  land  and  sea,  plain 
and  hill  marked  off  with  a  map-like  distinctness. 
From   them  the   land  and    the    sea    look    closely 


BRIDGWATER  6 

interlocked.  Pointing  to  the  Steep  and  Flat 
Holms  are  projecting  headlands,  eager  arms 
of  Mother  Earth  stretched  out  towards  her 
fugitive  children,  who  look  forlorn  in  the  chilly 
mist ;  while  on  the  low  fla.ts  rise  solitary  conical 
hills,  which  long  ago  were  islands,  though  now 
abandoned  by  the  receding  water.  Here  a 
glance  will  reveal  the  truth  about  the  land's 
flatness.  Large  stretches  of  plain  there  un- 
doubtedly are  in  the  vicinity  of  the  town  ;  yet 
the  plain  is  a  broad  valley  between  two  fair  ranges 
of  hill — the  Mendips,  softened  in  the  distance,  and 
the  Quantocks,  so  protectively  near  as  to  show 
not  only  the  dents  of  their  cosy  combes,  but  their 
clumps  of  wind- driven  firs.  To  the  Bridgwater 
man  the  proximity  of  these  hills  is  a  fact  of  capital 
importance.  They  speak  to  him  of  breezy  uplands, 
where  shy  deer  may  be  seen  in  the  distance  etched 
above  the  sky-line,  of  long  Avinding  combes,  in 
whose  crystal  brooks  frolic  young  trout,  and 
where  the  cunning  fox  keeps  the  secret  of  his  lair. 
Besides  the  tradition  of  sport  handed  down  from 
the  days  of  King  John,  they  can  boast  of  a  chain 
of  fine  old  buildings,  churches,  and  manor-houses  ; 
while  to  a  lover  of  our  literature  they  recalled 
the  golden  days  when  Coleridge  walked  with 
Wordsworth  or  Doroth}^  Wordsworth  about  the 
vv^oods  and  meadows  which  skirt  the  hills.  Re- 
moter places,  too,  like  Dunster  on  one  side  and 
Cheddar  and  Glastonbury  on  the  other,  were 
spiritually  annexed  by  us.  And  the  dull  flats 
themselves,  near-lying  Sedgemoor  and  the  rest, 
were     proudly     exhibited     to    those     who    loved 


6  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

beautiful  church  towers  and  thrilhng  historical 
associations. 

In  thus  laying  stress  on  its  neighbourhood  I 
must  not  be  supposed  to  underrate  the  attractions 
of  the  town  itself.  If  much  of  the  architecture 
was  commonplace,  it  had  some  redeeming  features. 
There  was  its  finely  conceived  centre,  the  Cornhill 
with  its  market-place,  to  which  all  the  streets 
converged.  Approaching  it  from  the  east,  you 
saw  behind  it  on  the  left  the  elegant  church — large 
even  for  Somerset — the  lofty  spire  of  which  was 
held  up  firmly  by  a  crenellated  square  tower.  It 
contains  the  one  art  treasure  of  our  town,  a  fine 
altar-piece,  about  the  origin  of  w^hich  there  has 
been  some  bold  romancing,  probably  the  work  of 
a  seventeenth-century  Italian  painter.  For  the 
lover  of  old  streets  Bridgv/ater  had  much  that 
was  interesting.  Some  of  them  were  narrow  and 
curving,  with  next  to  no  footway,  reminding  one 
of  those  of  Siena  and  other  Italian  towns.  Now 
and  then  one  would  come  upon  a  stretch  of  high 
brick  wall  over  which  trees  peeped,  the  hiding- 
place  of  some  garden,  marking  perhaps  the  site  of 
an  ancient  Franciscan  priory. 

More  thrillingly  mysterious  than  those  conventual- 
looking  walls  was  the  ruined  water-gate  of  the  old 
castle,  to  be  seen  on  the  West  Quay.  You  may  get 
sight  of  the  mouldy,  dank-looking  archway  by 
entering  between  two  low  folding  doors,  and  it  will 
certainly  give  you  in  the  gloomy  light  an  eerie 
impression  of  slow  secular  decay.  Though  the 
walls  of  the  castle  have  long  ago  disappeared,  one 
still  meets  with  reminders  of  it.     In  an  otherwise 


ANCESTRY  7 

perfectly  level  town,  there  is  an  anomalous  rise 
as  one  goes  from  the  Quay  through  the  spacious 
and  genteel  Castle  Street  up  to  Castle  Square, 
which  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  on  the  site 
of  the  Square  there  once  stood  the  keep  of  the 
old  fortress. 

Another  curious  relic  of  the  old  town  is  the 
short  blind-alley  of  a  street  named  Blake  Street, 
from  the  old  house  in  which  the  brave  Puritan 
Admiral  is  said  to  have  been  born.  This  street 
is  not  very  easy  to  find  ;  so  Bridgwater  people, 
not  so  many  years  since,  brought  out  their 
Admiral's  fame  into  the  full  daylight,  setting 
up  a  statue  to  him  in  front  of  the  market-place 
on  the  Cornhill.  One  more  reminder  survives  in 
the  name  Monmouth  Street,  down  which,  the 
story  says,  the  rebellious  Duke  rode  on  his  fateful 
journey  to  Sedgemoor. 

To  many,  more  noteworthy  than  the  old  build- 
ings and  the  fair  landscapes  will  seem  the  great 
natural  curiosity  of  the  town,  the  bore,  or  high 
tidal  wave,  that  sweeps  up  with  rousing  voice 
between  the  sleepy  mudbanks  on  the  turn  of  a 
spring-tide.  As  a  spectacle  of  death  and  silence 
suddenly  giving  place  to  life  and  riotous  sound 
it  would  be  hard  to  beat. 

Of  my  ancestry  I  have  little  to  record.  My 
father  came  of  a  seafaring  stock.  In  the  church- 
yard of  St.  Decuman's,  outside  Watchet,  stands  my 
paternal  grandfather's  tombstone,  on  which  is 
graven  a  rough  yet  eloquent  expression  of  a  sailor's 
resignation   when   finally    "  home   from   the   sea " 


8  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

and  near  the  end  of  life's  buffetings.  There  was,  I 
think,  some  Welsh  blood  on  my  mother's  side. 
Neither  my  father  nor  my  mother  was  a  cold, 
phlegmatic  Saxon — if  there  be  such  a  racial 
variety.  A  certain  quickness  of  response  to  im- 
pressions and  something  of  emotional  excitability 
characterized  both,  though  the  turbulence  of 
passion  was  excluded  by  strength  of  will,  aided  by 
the  moderating  influence  of  a  shrewd  practical 
intelligence.  I  have  inherited  some  of  their 
temperamental  warmth.  Whether  I  was,  as  my 
friend  Grant  Allen  used  to  assure  me,  a  Celt,  I 
cannot  say.  What  is  certain  is  that,  like  my 
father,  I  was  of  a  mercurial  temper,  spoke  quickly 
and  walked  briskly,  was  easily  moved  by  "  the 
tears  of  things,"  yet  ready  and  hearty  in 
laughter. 

In  the  forties  and  fifties,  Bridgwa,ter,  like 
many  another  country  town,  w^as  a  rather  dull 
place.  In  a  general  way  life  jogged  along  with 
hardly  m^ore  of  lively  variation  than  the  revolutions 
of  a  donkey  turning  a  wheel.  The  town  i^.xhibited 
in  acute  form  the  social  distinctions  of  profession 
and  trade,  church  and  dissent.  The  number  of 
religious  sects  was  remarkable,  and  I  remember 
how  sorely  it  perplexed  a  German  lady  friend  who 
first  made  acquaintance  with  the  intim.ate  ramnfi- 
cations  of  our  religious  world  as  the  wife  of  the 
Unitarian  minister  in  our  town.  These  distinctions 
implied  social  barriers  which  were  only  raised  in 
certain  favoured  cases,  as  when  a  wealthy  and 
influential  Unitarian  merchant  mJght  be  admitted 
to  the  higher  social  stratum,  which  was  composed 


SECTS   AND   PARTIES  9 

in  the  main  of  those  who  were  both  professional 
men  and  churchmen.  The  sharp  pohtical  division 
of  Liberal  and  Tory  coincided  for  the  most  part 
with  this  doubly  grounded  bifurcation  of  Bridgwater 
"  society."  The  rigid  separation  of  classes  was 
at  once  the  effect  and  the  cause  of  a  poor  repre- 
sentation of  the  intellectual  life  in  our  town.  It 
is  chiefly  a  comm.on  love  of  things  of  the  mind, 
whether  embodied  in  books  or  in  works  of  art, 
w^hich  brings  together  men  of  different  callings, 
religious  communities  and  the  rest. 

My  father  vv^as  at  once  a  trader,  a^ Baptist,  and, 
for  his  time,  a  pronounced  Radical  in  politics  ; 
hence  these  sharp  divisions  of  middle- class  society 
came  weightily  home  to  us.  Yet  the  assumptions 
of  superiority  implied  in  them  were,  I  am  sure, 
never  resented.  Dissenters  had  as  yet  scared}^ 
begun  to  seek  by  political  and  other  m.cans  the 
entree  into  a  higher  social  circle.  We  were  indeed 
apt  to  be  proud  of  our  family  commercialism,  of 
our  dissent,  and  of  our  Radical-Liberalism  ;  and 
we  derived  amusement  from  the  downward 
glances  of  those  who  liked  to  think  themselves 
our  social  superiors. 

In  those  days  wedded  folk  had  not  begun  to 
be  scrimpy  in  the  duty  of  bringing  children  into 
the  world,  and  families  of  six  or  thereabouts  were 
rather  the  rule  than  the  exception.  Before  I 
entered  upon  my  teens  our  family  had  reached 
the  respectable  figure  of  eight  children,  a  number 
which  remained  undiminished  until  I  was  in  the 
middle  of  the  thirties.  We  found  a  full  and  varied 
life  in  our  home,  and  the  richness  of  this  life  was 


10  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

in  a  measure  promoted   by  the   absence  of   more 
exciting  distractions  outside. 

If  vivid  and  full  recollections  of  the  first  years 
be  an  essential  qualification  for  writing  one's 
memoirs,  I  am  hopelessly  disqualified.  Most 
of  the  reports  of  memory  come  to  me  hardly 
less  thin  and  faint  than  ghostly  voices  echoing 
down  a  long  corridor,  or  like  human  speech  heard 
at  the  far  end  of  a  telephone  and  confused  with 
wholly  unrecognizable  sounds.  Of  the  first  years 
I  can  recover  only  a  few  of  such  echoes.  So  far 
as  I  can  ascertain,  I  had  nothing  of  the  rich, 
childish  fancy  which  gives  to  the  visible  world 
a  strange  yet  ravishing  magic  and  serves  to 
impress  its  scenes  indelibly  on  the  memory.  Nor 
was  I  in  any  sense  a  dreamer.  If  I  had  a 
bent  in  that  direction,  it  was  no  doubt  kept 
down  to  rudimentary  dimensions  by  the  rough 
and  tumble  of  our  rather  crowded  home.  Of 
my  first  three  or  four  years,  spent  in  a  house 
in  Salmon  Parade  on  the  east  bank  of  the 
Parret,  I  have  managed  to  preserve  only  one 
dim  fragmentary  impression,  that  of  mounted 
horsemen  splashing  through  our  street,  on  the 
occasion,  without  doubt,  of  an  exceptionally  high 
tide.  But  who  can  say  what  these  first  so-called 
recollections  really  mean  :  whether  they  are  in 
part  at  least  true  memories  of  things  seen  by  us, 
refreshed  from  time  to  time,  or  merely  reverbera- 
tions of  tales  repeatedly  told  us  by  our  elders  ? 
Even  in  my  second  home  in  Monmouth  Street, 
where  I  reached  the  age  of  twelve  or  more,  I  failed 


EARLY  MEMORIES  11 

to  garner  many  distinct  memories  of  single  impres- 
sions. I  can,  it  is  true,  recall  faintly  the  look  of 
the  long  garden  where  we  boys  sometimes  played 
at  the  thrilling  pastime  of  gunpowder  explosions, 
and  could  secure  a  daily  laugh  by  watching  the 
ostler  clean  our  restive  horse.  I  seem  to  see  still 
his  futile  tuggings  at  the  halter  as  "  Jimmy,"  in 
his  most  freakish  mood,  renewed  his  rearings  and 
gyrations,  and  to  hear  his  rich  output  of  Somerset 
epithets  when  half  cajoling,  half  execrating  his 
troublesome  charge.  Yet,  oddly  enough,  I  pre- 
serve no  mental  picture  of  the  horse  itself. 
Nor  can  I  recall  even  the  rooms  of  the  house 
where  so  much  of  my  time  must  have  been 
spent — only  a  blurred  sketch  of  the  hinder  out- 
side wall,  where  the  ripening  nectarines  used  to 
glow  in  the  morning  sun. 

One  prominent  feature  in  the  early  memory- 
picture  is  a  long  fruit  and  vegetable  garden,  in 
which  my  brother  and  I  were  engaged  in  the  boyish 
occupation  of  fetching  pears  down  from  a  well- 
laden  tree.  This  tree  was  rooted  in  the  adjoining 
garden,  but  stretched  its  branches  invitingly  over 
the  wall  into  ours.  It  belonged  to  our  uncle,  and  it 
may  be  that  in  helping  ourselves  in  this  fashion 
we  rashly  counted  on  avuncular  generosity.  What 
then  was  our  cruel  disappointment  when  the  uncle's 
head  suddenly  appeared  above  the  dividing  wall 
and  he  began,  in  alarming  tones,  to  abuse  us  for 
robbing  him  of  his  pears  ! 

But  the  most  vividly  outstanding  memories  of  the 
Monmouth  Street  home  relate  to  my  eldest  sister. 
One    Sunday   afternoon,    more   from   inadvertence 


12  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

perhaps  than  from  a  wish  to  spy,  I  opened  the 
drawing-room  door  and  saw  this  sister  sitting  very 
close  to  the  gentleman  who  was  at  this  time  "  paying 
her  his  addresses."  I  got  a  good  scolding  later, 
and  the  experience  set  me  thinking.  I  knew  what 
was  meant  by  the  troublesome  excuse  "  I  am 
engaged  "  when  I  wanted  somebody  to  do  a  thing 
for  me  ;  but  this  sort  of  "  engagement,"  which 
monopolized  the  drawing-room  on  a  Sunday  after- 
noon, was  another  and  a  quite  baffling  matter.  A 
second  experience,  recalled  under  the  fuller  blaze 
of  memory's  lamp,  was  the  death  of  this  sister. 
She  was  known  and  remembered  among  us  as 
having  a  very  gentle  disposition  and  a  deep,  un- 
demonstrative piety.  The  fervency  of  her  piety 
was  shown  in  her  insisting  shortly  before  her  death 
on  giving  us  all,  sisters  and  brothers  and  servants, 
as  well  as  parents  and  husband,  a  religious 
farewell.  Her  beautiful  face,  ahvays  delicate, 
and  no^v  refined  awa}^  to  an  almost  transparent 
mask  for  her  ardent  spirit,  looking  pleadingly  at 
me  as  she  whispered  her  last  admonition  to  be 
"  good,"  returns  to  my  inner  perception  as  I  write. 
My  intensified  sensibility  was,  I  remem-ber,  tor- 
tured during  that  solemn  leave-taking  by  the 
sound  of  a  hand-organ  playing  near  the  death- 
chamber.  That  moment's  experience  of  defiant 
horror  msiy  perhaps  have  started  the  growth 
of  my  lifelong  and  almost  furious  detestation 
of  the  naturalized  British  "  grinder  "  ;  from 
which  the  musical  and  cheery  itinerant  instru- 
ment one  meets  with  in  Italy  must  be  carefully 
distinguished. 


EARLY  MEMORIES  13 

The  regime  of  our  home  was  a  Puritan  one, 
temxpered  by  a  fund  of  generous  allowance  in  our 
governors.  The  religious  practices,  morning  and 
evening  prayers  in  the  home  and  Sunday  services 
in  the  chapel,  were  strictly  observed.  My  father's 
prayers  were  extempore.  They  had  a  certain 
spontaneous  eloquence  which,  following  the  custom 
of  those  days,  we  referred  to  a  divine  unction. 
Sunday  was  presented  to  us  in  a  kind  of  halo  which 
blotted  out  from  sight  m.ost  of  our  weekday  in- 
terests and  occupations.  We  were  provided  with 
a  variety  of  what  was  regarded  as  edifying  Sunday 
literature,  its  heaviness  being  relieved  by  illus- 
trations which,  if  not  beautiful,  had  an  eerie 
fascination  for  young  eyes.  Among  these  was 
Foxe's  "  Book  of  Martyrs,"  a  work  which  John 
Bunyan  seems  to  have  held  in  higher  repute  than 
v^e  children.  Bunyan's  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and, 
in  a  lesser  degree,  his  ''  Holy  War,"  had  the  right 
proportions  of  the  terrible  and  the  lovely  ;  and 
even  to-day  such  names  as  Apollyon,  Giant  Despair, 
Greatheart,  Vanity  Fair,  and  the  Delectable  Moun- 
tains send  a  thrill  of  terror  or  of  wondering  delight 
through  my  blood.  And  oh  !  the  delicious  queer- 
ness  of  those  names,  Mr.  Worldly- Wiseman,  Mr. 
Facing-both-Ways,  and  the  rest  !  Of  the  "  goody  " 
stories  I  remember  best  "  Sandford  and  Merton," 
probably  because  I  so  cordially  disliked  its  obvious 
preachiness.  How  happy  we  should  have  been  if 
somebody  had  told  us  of  the  laughable  attempts 
of  the  author,  Thomas  Day,  to  train  his  two  girl 
protegees  in  the  Rousseau  manner  by  firing  a  pistol 
at  their  skirts  so  as  to  harden  them  in  endurance. 


14  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

This  imposition  of  a  weekly  fasting  from  agree- 
able mental  food  grew  less  severe  as  the  years 
passed ;  partly  because  we  were  growing  and 
demanding  more  liberty  of  choice,  partly  as  a  con- 
sequence of  the  wider  views  which  my  elder  sisters 
were  now  imbibing.  The  newer  style  of  family 
magazine  introduced  later,  such  as  the  Sunday 
Magazine  and  Good  Words,  had,  I  think,  a  con- 
siderable influence  in  effecting  a  half-stealthy  intro- 
duction of  fiction  into  religious  homes.  It  was  an 
interesting  moment  in  our  family  history  when 
the  fitness  of  a  book  for  Sunday  reading  began  to 
be  discussable. 

A  certain  severity  of  discipline,  against  which 
we  youngsters  were  apt  to  kick,  arose  from  the 
circumstance  that  ours  was  a  busy  house  requiring 
much  punctilious  regularity  in  the  matter  of  meals 
and  other  things.  My  father  was  a  hard-working 
man,  for  whom  time  was  money,  and  he  was  away 
in  his  office,  save  for  the  brief  meal  intervals,  until 
six  o'clock  and  later.  My  mother,  too,  had  her 
busy  sphere.  The  activities  of  the  domestic  hive 
included  in  those  days  not  only  such  obvious 
functions  as  the  weekly  washing  and  ironing,  but 
the  weekly  baking,  the  less  frequent  brewing — 
which  it  is  said  was  done  by  women  who  started 
work  at  three  in  the  morning, — the  occasional  bouts 
of  dressmaking  when  a  dressmaker  would  come 
for  a  shilling  a  day  and  her  keep,  and  the  great 
summer  occupations  of  preserving  fruits,  pickling, 
and  making  sweet  cordials,  such  as  the  invaluable 
elderberry  wine.     In  a  large  house  with  a  family 


EARLY  MEMORIES  15 

of  eight  children  two  servants  were  obviously 
inadequate  to  keep  things  going.  My  mother  was 
energetic  and  capable  of  prolonged  exertions,  and 
she  looked  to  her  girls  to  show  a  like  strenuousness, 
more  particularly  by  assisting  in  the  dressmaking 
and  ironing. 

The  growing  pressure  of  our  needs  developed  in 
my  mother  a  severe  regard  for  the  economies.  I 
remember  how  glad  she  would  be  when,  during  a 
visit  to  Steart  or  other  primitive  seaside  place, 
we  boys  succeeded  in  getting  for  the  table  some 
succulent  silver  eels.  These  marine  creatures  hid 
themselves  at  low  water  in  slimy  pools  under 
stones,  and  in  order  to  get  them  out  and  slay  them 
we  had  to  splash  ourselves  with  mud.  On  our 
entrance  after  the  chase,  our  much-tried  parent 
would  look  despairingly  for  a  moment  at  our 
bespattered  clothes,  but  before  there  was  time  for 
a  scolding  to  escape  her  we  had  brought  a  look  of 
more  than  satisfaction  to  her  face  by  showing  the 
contents  of  our  basket.  The  captains  of  our  coast- 
ing vessels  knew  her  weakness,  and  when  their 
vessels  returned  from  the  coast  of  Wales  they 
would  "  remember  missus  "  by  bringing  her  a  keg 
of  cockles  or  even  of  oysters. 

In  spite  of  sombre  Sabbatarian  restrictions,  and 
in  spite,  too,  of  absorbing  business  preoccupations, 
our  home  managed  to  keep  something  of  joyous- 
ness,  and  even  of  gaiety,  in  its  atmosphere.  The 
appearance  of  our  father  on  the  scene  in  the  evening 
was  like  a  belated  outburst  of  sunshine.  He  had 
a  full,  resonant  laugh,  and  enjoyed  a  "  capital  joke  " 
with  the  lustiest.     He  loved,  too,  a  bit  of  romping 


16  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

play  with  his  bairns  after  the  long  day's  work  was 
over.  I  faintly  recall  his  look  as,  before  we  little 
kids  were  marched  off  to  bed,  he  would  go  down  on 
all  fours  on  the  floor  and  play  the  part  of  horse  for 
us  delighted  riders.  Our  excitement  must  have 
cost  him  dear  when  we  kept  our  seat  on  his  back,  by 
grasping  his  long  side- whiskers.  I  have  retained 
a  particular  gratitude  for  these  paternal  unbendings 
and  stoopings  to  infantile  sport.  They  brought 
him  nearer  to  us  and  saved  us  from  the  absurdities 
of  some  "up-to-date"  children  described  in  recent 
literature,  v/ho  regard  their  parents  as  poor  inferior 
creatures  inhabiting  a  stupid  abnormal  world  quite 
out  of  touch  with  their  own. 

As  compared  with  children  of  to-day  we  had, 
of  course,  only  a  few  toys,  and  these  were  of  simple 
construction  and  inexpensive.  But  perhaps  we 
managed  to  get  as  much  imaginative  enjoyment 
out  of  them  as  children  now  get  out  of  more 
elaborate  and  costly  ones.  Their  scarcity  had 
at  least  the  advantage  of  securing  for  us  a  full 
jubilant  delight  on  receiving  a  new  one.  As  we 
grew  we  were  admitted  into  the  secrets  of  such 
games  as  dominoes.  Our  mother  had  a  good 
calculating  brain,  and  she  used  to  get  quite  ex- 
cited over  the  game.  Later  a  bagatelle  board 
came  upon  the  scene,  and  this  was  of  course  greatly 
preferred  by  us  boys,  not  only  as  being  more  a 
thorough  game  than  the  arithmetical  exercise  of 
dominoes,  but  as  giving  us  something  to  do.  My 
/nother,  I  remember,  was  equally  enthusiastic 
over  the  new  game,  and  would  spring  about  like 
a  young  girl  after  making  a  good  stroke. 


CHRISTMASTIDE  17 

The  j  oiliest  time,  when  parents  and  children 
sank  their  differences  and  became  wholly  one  in 
frolicsome  play,  was  Christmastide.  A  day  or 
two  before  the  feast  we  might  be  taken  by  father 
to  the  grocer's  shop  to  buy  oranges,  almonds  and 
raisins,  and  other  lovely  dainties.  I  delighted 
especially  in  the  sight  of  the  pretty  boxes,  with 
lively  Southern  ladies  painted  on  the  cover,  in 
which  the  French  plums  were  neatly  arranged 
under  folds  of  white  paper  with  serrated  edges. 
The  grocers'  shops  had  a  complex  charm  for  our 
eyes,  and  for  our  nostrils  too.  We  liked  to  stand 
outside  the  window  of  one  of  them  in  awesome 
v/ondcr  gazing  at  the  figures  of  the  two  Chinese 
mandarins — poor,  unhappy-looking  exiles  who  gave 
expression  to  their  weariness  by  perpetual  noddings 
of  the  head. 

The  fun  began  on  Christmas  Eve.  In  those  days 
there  was  no  Christmas-tree,  but  we  got  our  beauti- 
ful dazzling  lights  in  another  way.  Father  would 
place  on  the  glowing  drawing-room  fire  a  large 
ashen  faggot  which  shot  up  tongues  of  flame — 
a  marvel  for  all  beholding — and  further  delighted 
us  by  the  splutterings  and  cracking  noises  it 
emitted.  Christmas  Day  was  much  what  it  is  now, 
a  frank  indulgence  in  "  good  cheer."  A  special 
feature  at  breakfast  was  a  pile  of  hot  flakey 
"  manchets."  The  thrilling  hour  was  after  tea, 
v/hen,  the  afternoon  siesta  of  our  elders  having  been 
completed,  we  were  free  to  romp  and  play  games. 
To  the  head  of  the  family  was  allotted  the  part  of 
Father  Christmas.  His  arrival  at  the  front  door 
was  announced  by   the  maid  in  mysterious  whig- 

8 


18  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

perings,  which  whipped  up  our  curiosity  to  the 
bursting-point.  The  disguise  at  first  completely 
took  us  in,  though  our  peering  curiosity  soon 
discovered  something  of  the  familiar. 

The  Christmas  entertainment  which  remains 
freshest  in  my  memory  was  a  sort  of  puppet-show 
of  moving  shadows.  The  apparatus  was  simple 
enough — just  a  clothes-horse  or  two  covered  with 
sheets,  a  few  paper  cuttings  of  houses,  bridges, 
and  other  objects  for  the  mise  en  scene,  and  for 
actors  some  cardboard  figures  of  men  and  animals 
whose  bodies  and  arms  were  pivoted  and  movable 
by  strings  attached.  We  sat  outside  in  the  dark 
and  gazed  with  rapt  impatience  at  the  brightly 
illumined  screen,  across  which  might  flit  some- 
times an  awful  formless  shadow-apparition.  Our 
entertainers,  standing,  like  the  Punch  and  Judy 
showman,  out  of  view,  would  throw  upon  the 
screen  strange  dark  little  figures — a  manikin  re- 
pairing a  bridge,  a  scissors-grinder,  or  a  fractious 
horse  and  his  rider,  accompanying  the  show  with 
a  characteristic  song  or  cry,  such  as  "  The  bridge 
is  abroken,  and  can't  be  mended,"  or  "  Scissors 
to  grind."  It  was  a  huge  delight  to  us  to  see 
some  of  our  favourite  town  sights  imitated  in 
this  way.  It  was,  too,  a  great  mystery ;  for 
though  we  saw  that  it  was  the  magic  of  light 
which  did  the  work,  we  had  not  enough 
mechanical  knowledge  to  guess  the  secret  of 
the  moving  puppets.  Keen,  however,  as  we 
were  to  solve  the  puzzle,  we  were  rather  sorry, 
after  the  explanation  had  been  hit  upon,  to  part 
with  our  sweet  illusions.     This  little  attempt  at  a 


VISITORS  19 

marionette  performance  was  artistically  poor 
enough,  and  cannot  be  compared  with  the  dainty 
Puppenspiel  of  which  Goethe  tells  us  in  "  Dichtung 
und  Wahrheit  "  and  in  "  Wilhelm  Meister,"  re- 
calling his  own  childish  experiences.  Yet  it  may 
be  that  the  greater  mystery  of  our  show  and  the 
weird  fascination  of  the  shadows  made  it  hardly 
less  entrancing. 

After  our  sisters  had  been  to  a  boarding-school, 
the  girl  friends  that  they  had  made  there  would 
pay  us  visits,  which  helped  to  enlarge  the  home 
circle  and  its  interests.  They  brought  possibilities 
of  a  picnic  to  the  pretty  sloping  park  of  Halswell, 
and  even  of  a  drive  to  Cockercombe  or  other  gate- 
way to  the  Quantock  heights.  And  what  was 
more  exciting  for  children,  perhaps,  they  brought 
us  stories,  both  tragic  and  comic  in  tone,  of  girls' 
school  experiences.  Later,  when  I  was  beginning 
to  care  for  books,  the  visits  might  introduce  a  new 
novel  to  be  read  aloud.  Reading  aloud  was  one 
of  our  great  treats,  and  I  remember  how  we  used 
to  have  our  nerves  strung  up  to  the  highest  pitch 
of  fearful  ecstasy  when  listening  to  the  adventures 
of  Uncle  Tom  and  the  other  figures  in  Mrs.  Beecher 
Stowe's  narrative. 

Besides  these  longer  visits,  we  often  had  a  call 
from  friends  coming  to  the  town.  It  might  be 
somebody  from  the  Athelney  neighbourhood,  or 
more  distant  regions  of  the  flat  moors — a  rough- 
looking  countryman,  perhaps,  who  talked  the  good 
broad  "  Zummerzit "  dialect,  and  showed  some- 
thing of  a  yokel's  awkwardness  in  sitting  down  to 


80  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

our  table  and  talking  to  young  ladies.  The 
weekly  market-day,  and  still  more  St.  Matthew's 
Fair  about  the  end  of  September,  was  the  time 
for  these  callers,  who  would  be  asked  by  my  father 
to  come  and  take  "  pot-luck  "  at  our  table.  Among 
these  country  folk  one  ever-welcome  guest  was, 
like  the  farther  of  Phillis  in  Mrs.  Gaskell's  story,  a 
farmer- preacher.  He  was  of  unusual  height,  and 
had  a  stoop,  begotten,  our  childish  fancy  suggested, 
of  many  bendings  of  his  back  on  entering  doorways 
unaccommodatingly  low.  He  bubbled  over  with 
merry  humour,  and  I  loved  to  watch  his  cheeks,  as 
rosy  as  one  of  his  Somerset  apples,  crinkle  up  and 
half  hide  his  eyes  as  the  mirthful  fit  took  him. 

With  parents  who,  though  deeply  serious,  were 
disposed  to  be  large-hearted,  and  with  sisters 
gradually  broadening  out  in  their  views,  the  re- 
ligious ordeal  became  tempered.  Parents  and 
children  had  a  good  endowment  of  humour,  and 
for  us  younger  ones  there  lay  close  to  the 
solemnities  refreshing  springs  of  merriment. 
Even  during  the  hushed  minutes  of  family 
prayers  our  lively  young  perceptions  would  be 
tickled  by  some  droll  incongruity,  as  the  sudden 
outburst  of  a  mal-apropos  from  a  small  child 
whom  the  authorities  had  been  hasty  in  allow- 
ing to  take  part  in  the  trying  ceremony. 

But  it  was  in  chapel  that  we  early  looked 
out  for  momentary  reliefs  from  the  strain  of 
self-compression  imposf-d  by  the  service,  more 
especially  by  the  long  sermon.  We  began  to  be 
taken  to  chapel  at  an  early  age.  The  building 
had    planted    itself   rathe?    boldly    just    oppoTsite 


IN   CHAPEL  21 

St.  Mary's  Church  ;   but  in  so  doing  it  had — whether 
from  a  spontaneous  prudence  or  under  compulsion 
I  do  not  know — tempered  its  look  of  aggressiveness 
by   placing  itself  out   of  sight  behind   an   arched 
entrance.     Yet  if  its  exterior  had  a  shut-in  look, 
its  interior,  after  you  had  passed  the  dark  corner 
under  the  gallery  where  the  Sunday-school  children 
were    packed    away    during   the    morning    service, 
wore   a   most   open   aspect.     There   were   no   side 
galleries,  and  the  rows  of  pews,  both  on  the  sides 
and  at  the  entrance  end,  were  arranged  in  amphi- 
theatre-like tiers.     From  a  juvenile  point  of  view 
this  arrangement  had  the  obvious  advantage  over 
the  old  plan  of  level  secretive  pews  of  giving  our 
eyes  a  full  and  unobstructed  command  of  the  scene. 
Everything  that  occurred  seemed  made  to  entertain 
us,   and   I   am   pretty   sure  that  our  sisters   were 
hardly    less    keen    than    ourselves    in    noting    the 
appearance    of   something    new    and    funny.     The 
entrance    of   the    worshippers    was    charged    with 
queer    meanings    for    young    eyes.      The    various 
gaits  of  men  and  women  alike,  as  they  marched 
with    something    of    the    pompousness    or    of    the 
awkward   constraint   of  closely   observed   mortals^ 
down  the  steps,  along  the  aisle,  and  up  the  steps  to 
their  pews,  were  an  engrossing  entertainm_ent ;  nor 
did  we  fail  to  note  novel  and  piquant  features  in 
their  dress.     The  modes  of  settling  down  in  the 
peWj  too — the  smoothing  out  the  dress,  the  emitting 
a  little  nervous  cough,  and  the  rest — had  a  poignant 
interest   for  us.     And   when   the   moment   of  col- 
lective sitting  down  to  the  sermon  was  reached, 
the  tension  of  expectation  was  almost  more  than 


22  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

we  could  bear.  The  possibilities  of  all  sorts  of 
little  self-adjustive  vocal  utterances  kept  our 
attention  spellbound.  Still  more  exciting  was  the 
watching  of  the  poses  of  the  head,  so  as  to  catch  the 
first  oncoming  of  a  nodding  somnolence  ;  for  it 
seemed  to  us  that  we  should  be  sure  some  day  to 
see  a  collapse  of  the  whole  human  frame. 

Sometimes  more  in-esistible  intrusions  of  the 
droll  would  reward  our  diligent  peering.  In  one 
of  the  higher  rows  of  seats  there  used  to  sit  an  old 
gentleman,  exquisitely  got  up  in  frilled  shirt,  who 
was  wont  now  and  again  to  regale  himself— if  not 
also  to  ward  off  a  threatening  sleepiness — with  a 
good  pinch  of  snuff.  But,  alas !  his  hand  was 
shaky,  and  the  fragrant  powder  had  a  way  of 
falling  into  the  immaculate  frills ;  which  catas- 
trophe he  would  meet  in  hot  haste  by  trying  to 
flick  away  the  snuff,  growing  ever  redder  and  redder. 

I  would  not  suggest  that  even  in  the  first  unin- 
structed  years  of  chapel-going  I  found  only  this 
sort  of  childish  amusement  in  the  proceedings.  A 
more  serious  attitude  was  developed  by  the  musical 
part  of  the  worship.  At  the  time  I  speak  of,  some 
dissenting  chapels  were  already  exerting  themselves 
to  relieve  the  drab  Puritanism  of  their  services  by 
cultivating  a  more  artistic  kind  of  choral  music. 
It  happened  that  an  influential  merchant  in  our 
congregation  had  trained  his  ear  on  the  classical 
works  of  Mozart,  Beethoven,  and  even  earlier 
composers.  He  reorganized  the  singing  in  the 
chapel,  substituting  for  the  old  jejune  hymn- tunes 
others  based  on  motives  taken  from  the  works  of 
these  masters  ;   and  he  actually  added  to  the  vocal 


QUAKERS  23 

part  anthems  with  solos,  some  of  which,  I  believe, 
were  rendered  by  paid  professional  singers.  The 
organ  and  choir  were  in  a  gallery  at  the  back,  and 
invisible  from  our  pew.  I  drank  in  the  music 
with  a  delicious  wonder,  and,  if  I  thought  at 
all,  referred  it  to  some  mysterious  angelic  choir. 
Perhaps  the  effect  of  this  first  introduction  to  the 
magic  of  good  music  lives  on  in  the  feeling  with 
which  the  best  music  still  inspires  me — of  being 
lifted  high  above  terrestrial  things. 

Our  readiness  to  find  amusement  in  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  chapel  service  was  part  of  a 
general  disposition  to  make  our  world  as  far  as 
possible  an  amusing  spectacle.  In  our  small  town 
there  was  a  rich  crop  of  personal  oddities.  The 
number  of  religious  bodies  itself  furnished  a  cer- 
tain droll  diversity  of  appearance  and  of  behaviour, 
and  among  these  bodies  it  was,  I  think,  the  Quakers 
who  ministered  most  to  our  appetite  for  piquant 
eccentricities.  It  was  a  delight  to  see  the  dear 
Quaker  ladies  in  their  grey  silk  dresses  and  bonnets, 
and  the  elderly  gentlemen,  too,  darkly  clad  in  broad 
hats,  cut-away  coats,  knee-breeches  and  gaiters.  It 
was  a  greater  treat  to  be  taken  into  one  of  their 
shops  and  overhear  their  quaint  conversation. 

Among  these  was  a  chemist's  shop,  in  which,  in 
addition  to  the  funny  Quaker-talk,  we  got  the 
thrilling  experience  of  going  up  close  to  the  great 
coloured  globes  which  had  glared  at  us  through 
the  window  like  a  pair  of  monster  eyes.  The 
chemists  in  Bridgwater,  even  when  not  Quakers, 
were  given  to  affecting  certain  oddities,  and  I 
seem   able  to   recall  an   alert  old  gentleman  who 


24  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

delighted  us  by  skipping  about  his  shop  in  a  white 
Eton  jacket.  To  return  to  the  Quakers :  even 
their  ways  of  doing  business  were  apt  to  be  pecuhar. 
A  Quaker  chemist,  on  being  asked  by  a  customer 
how^  much  he  had  to  pay,  would  reply  by  asking, 
"  What  hast  thou  been  accustomed  to  pay  ?  " 
This  illustrates,  perhaps,  in  a  whimsical  way  a  char- 
acteristic with  which  we  used  to  credit  Quakers — 
a  strict  adherence  to  the  terms  of  a  bargain  once 
made.  Among  the  early  experiences  of  which 
blurred  impressions  still  survive  in  memory  are 
visits  to  a  dear  old  Quaker  lady.  Though  a  bit 
prim-looking,  she  had  a  sweet  expression  ;  so  that 
something  in  me — a  bit  of  nascent  priggishness 
perhaps— v/as  shocked  when  she  corrected  some 
excessive  warmth  in  a  remark  made  by  my  acknow- 
ledged corrector  with  the  words,  "  Thee  oughtn't 
to  say  that,  James  Sully," 

For  all  his  congeniality  of  tem^per  and  playful- 
ness, my  father  had  a  deep-laid  respect  for  duty, 
and  he  expected  obedience  from  his  boys.  I  have 
no  reason  to  think  that  we  were  a  particularly 
bad  lot,  but  we  had  in  us,  I  dare  say,  the  average 
amount  of  "  original  sin,"  and  I  in  particular 
came  in  for  some  chastisement  which,  I  feel  sure, 
was  "  richly  deserved."  Ructions  are  apt  to  occur 
even  in  a  closely  united  family  if  the  parents  happen 
to  be  themselves  strong-v/illed  and  to  have  be- 
queathed some  of  their  masterfulness  of  spirit  to 
their  offspring.  I  cannot  remember  that  we  ever 
resented  the  severity  of  our  father's  discipline ; 
though,  like  other  boys,  we  found  at  the  mom.ent 
the  short  prefacing  discourse,  in  which  he  sought 


MY  FATHER  25 

to  persuade  us  that  it  was  parental  love  which 
prompted  him  to  chastise  us,  a  hard  pill  to  swallow. 
So  far  as  I  can  remember,  I  had,  even  in  the  early- 
years,  no  extravaga^nt  ideas  of  my  parent's  in- 
fallibility, and  was  ready  now  and  again  to  challenge 
his  opinions.  But  I  had  a  lot  of  admiration 
for  him.  This  feeling  had  more  than  one  root. 
His  cheery  bonhomie  and  generosity  drew  out 
our  affections.  His  discipline  shov\^ed  an  unre- 
laxing  regard  for  impartiality  and  fairness.  We 
paid  him,  too,  a  kind  of  hero-worship.  This  came 
to  us  to  a  large  extent  by  way  of  traditions  handed 
down  by  our  mother  and  sisters.  We  heard  what 
hardships  he  had  bravely  faced  in  his  boyish  days, 
and  how  brave  he  had  proved  himself  during  the 
terrible  cholera  scourge  of  1849.  Just  opposite 
us  there  was  a  "rookery"  which  contributed  a 
large  quota  of  the  deaths  in  the  town.  Our  uncle 
urged  him  to  remove  his  family,  and  offered  the 
hospitality  of  his  house  at  Wembdon.  But  father 
declined  to  move  us,  viewing  a  flight  at  such  an 
hour  as  cowardice  as  well  as  lack  of  religious 
trust.  In  his  rash  carelessness  he  even  went  so 
far  as  to  take  part  in  the  gloomy  work  of  moving 
the  bodies  of  the  poor  cholera  victims  by  night  to 
the  churchyard — a  risky  undertaking,  with  which, 
it  may  be  supposed,  but  few  were  prepared  to 
charge  themselves.  We  were  proud,  too,  of  his 
plucky  refusal  to  pay  church  rates,  a  step  which 
helped  to  make  him  obnoxious  to  the  "  respect- 
ables." Another  story  of  his  bravery  told  us  of 
his  carrying  some  of  us,  when  cut  off  by  a  rising 
tide  at  VVatchet,  up  a  steep  cliff. 


CHAPTER    II 

SCHOOLDAYS 

The  memory  deposit  of  my  early  schooling  is 
scanty  enough.  I  was  first  taken  in  hand  by  an 
elder  sister,  an  experiment  which  lasted  but  a  short 
time,  and  was,  I  fear,  no  great  success.  After 
this  I  was  marched  off,  when  still  a  "  wee  mite," 
to  a  dame-school  in  the  town,  hand  in  hand  with 
the  sister  next  above  me  in  the  family  scale.  Then 
came  a  trial  of  a  second  Bridgwater  dame-school, 
with  a  mistress  of  whom  I  still  preserve  a  fairly 
clear  mental  portrait.  She  had  a  lot  of  trim  curls 
of  the  lightest  shade  of  yellow.  I  half  worshipped 
those  curls,  at  once  delighted  by  their  entrancing 
prettiness  and  cast  down  by  the  rebuking  look 
their  too  perfect  habit  of  keeping  in  place  gave  to 
my  own  unruly  locks. 

The  third  experiment  was  a  dame  boarding- 
school  in  a  village  lying  among  the  flats  to  the 
north  of  the  town.  It  was  not  far  from  East 
Brent,  the  abode  of  a  famous  archdeacon,  a  High 
Churchman,  with  a  holy  detestation  of  dissent, 
for  whom  my  father  naturally  enough  cherished 
a  reciprocal  antipathy.  It  was  a  rather  nice- 
looking    detached    house    with    a    lawn    in    front. 

26 


DAME-SCHOOLS  27 

Figures  of  Adam  and  Eve  stood  one  on  either  side 
of  the  gravel  plot.  They  faced  one  another  there 
in  primal  nudity,  and  I  think  that  our  first 
mother  was  holding  out  the  fatal  apple  to  her 
lord.  The  white  statues  had  a  weird  fascina- 
tion for  me,  possibly  because  their  nudity  and 
the  naughty  conduct  of  the  lady  invested  the 
figures  for  my  superstitious  fancy  with  some  sort 
of  malign  influence.  The  house  and  the  two  figures 
had  recently  been  painted ;  and  even  to-day 
when  I  smell  fresh  paint  the  fayade  of  that 
house  flanked  with  the  improper  statues  glimmers 
out  for  a   moment   from   dark   oblivion. 

From  this  dame-school  I  was  removed  to  still 
another  in  the  village  of  Westonzoyland.  I  was  too 
young  to  appreciate  the  beautiful  many-windowed 
square  tower  of  the  local  church,  and  my  English 
history  had  hardly  advanced  enough  to  make  me 
interested  in  the  adjoining  battlefield  of  Sedge- 
moor.  ^Vhat  that  year  or  so  in  the  old  village  has 
bequeathed  to  memory  is  the  image  of  a  fair  young 
girl  of  about  my  own  age  for  whom  I  cherished  a 
sentimental  fondness.  I  was  particularly  proud 
of  her  obstinate  refusal  to  use  the  name  "  America," 
for  which  she  always  substituted  "  Columbia," 
thereby  showing,  as  I  thought,  an  unusual  childish 
respect  for  historical  fair-play. 

My  third  and  last  dame  boarding-school  lay 
near  to  Stogursey  and  to  the  bit  of  solitary  low- 
cliffed  shore  called  Shurton  Bars,  on  which  Cole- 
ridge wrote  some  lines.  My  brother  next  below  me 
in  age  accompanied  me  to  this  school.  Our  school- 
mistress,   who   was    small   and     dainty   in   person 


28  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

and  lively  in  speech  and  movement,  had  by  some 
freak  of  destiny  paired  with  a  thatcher.  He  was  a 
big  man,  and  had  a  large  head  and  protuberant 
eyes,  one  of  which  refused  to  look  at  you.  Yet 
his  bigness,  aided  though  it  was  by  the  cast  in 
the  eye,  gave  to  his  aspect  nothing  of  the  for- 
midable. He  showed  himself,  on  the  contrary, 
a  particularly  harmless  person,  as  he  moved 
slowly  about,  talking  but  seldom,  and  then 
only  in  a  soft,  a,pologetic  sort  of  voice.  The 
divergent  eye  somehow  helped  this  expression 
of  meekness  of  spirit — a  wish  not  to  be  aggres- 
sive in  a  glance.  We  boys  soon  grew  to  like 
him,  partly  for  the  pleasant  look  of  his  ruddy 
cheeks  framed  in  by  white  hair,  and  partly  for  the 
gentleness  of  his  manner.  Perhaps,  too,  we  were 
drawn  to  him  by  a  fellow-feeling,  a  common  wish 
to  escape  from  the  almost  fierce  activity  of  our 
mistress,  from  her  rather  nagging  ways,  and  from 
her  depressing  insistence  upon  the  superior  status 
of  her  family.  Yet  the  lady's  mental  preoccupation 
with  her  ancestry  did  not,  fortunately  for  us,  lead 
her  to  neglect  her  housekeeping,  which  (I  remember 
with  gratitude),  produced  excellent  apple-pies  for 
the  cold  Sunday  dinner. 

Our  host  would  sometimes  take  us  with  him  on 
his  thatching  expeditions,  and  we  rather  liked  to 
walk  with  him  attired  in  his  picturesque  costum.e 
of  brown  velveteen  jacket  and  leggings.  Once 
he  led  us  into  the  squire's  park,  where  I  was  much 
impressed  by  the  great  clumps  of  trees  on  the 
tops  of  which  the  rooks  cawed,  by  the  broad, 
spacious  lawns  and  glades  where  the  deer  loitered, 


ST.   FRANCIS  29 

and  by  the  fine  old  mansion.  The  restfulness 
that  for  my  ear  still  Im-ks  in  the  sound  of  the 
rooks'  cawing  dates  from  that  visit. 

The  little  chapel  near  our  cottage  had  the  well- 
known  aspect  of  the  old  country  conventicle.  The 
appearance  of  the  minister  harmonized  with  that 
of  the  chapel.  His  spare  figure,  lean  cheeks,  and 
shiny  black  clothes  spoke  of  the  res  angusta  domi. 
The  gentleness  of  his  soft  blue  eyes  was  very 
"winning.  He,  too,  had  something  meek  and 
apologetic  in  his  manner,  and  this  impression 
was  oddly  intensified  for  me  by  the  presence  of  a 
hairy  wart  on  one  cheek.  We  looked  upon  him 
as  a  saint,  and  had  we  then  heard  of  St.  Francis, 
should  have  taken  him  to  be  a  follower  of  his  Lady 
Poverty.  His  double  duty  at  two  chapels  some 
miles  apart  led  to  his  sharing  in  our  cold  Sunday 
dinner,  and  I  enjoyed  watching  the  gusto  with 
which  his  spare  body  attacked  the  cold  pork  and 
apple-tart. 

His  congregation  consisted  of  a  variety  of  rustic 
types  which  might  have  contributed  additions  to 
the  rich  portrait-gallery  of  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy. 
A  special  feature  of  the  service  was  the  entrance 
of  a  procession  of  tallish  men,  who  no  doubt  had 
their  satisfactory  reasons  for  remaining  outside 
to  the  last  moment.  They  would  straggle  in  and 
out  with  most  ungainly  strides,  and  I  fancy  we 
used  to  call  them  "  the  awkward  squad."  One 
or  tv/o  of  them  held  the  office  of  flute-player  or 
other  performer  in  the  choral  service,  and  their 
attempts  at  harmonious  orchestration  were  of  en- 
grossing interest  to  us  boys.     Technical  obstacles 


30  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

sometimes  occurred,  when  the  musicians  would 
hold  a  parley  one  with  another,  and  possibly  with 
some  of  the  lay  members  of  the  congregation. 
The  occasion  of  a  baptism  gave  much  anxiety  to 
our  hard-pressed  minister.  A  well-filled  baptistery 
in  the  middle  of  a  narrow  aisle  was  not  easy  of 
circumvention,  and  I  remember  an  occasion, 
which  has  become  historical  for  our  family,  when 
an  extravagantly  tall  rustic,  walking  as  majes- 
tically as  he  knew  how,  suddenly  disappeared 
with  a  splash,  to  rise  again  with  all  the  majesty 
washed  out  of  his  figure. 

But  my  memories  of  the  Burton  chapel  are 
not  all  of  a  droll  kind.  I  connect  with  it  one 
of  my  earliest  experiences  of  religious — or  quasi- 
religious — exaltation.  A  young  girl — probably  a 
day  pupil  at  our  little  dame-school — was  taken 
with  a  serious  illness  and  her  life  was  despaired  of. 
In  the  chapel  we  were  much  moved  by  the  prayers 
offered  up  for  her.  Then  she  got  better,  and  I 
seem  still  to  recall  her  attenuated  form  and  pale 
face  when  she  came  among  us  again,  and  still  to 
catch  a  faint  reverberation  of  the  delicious  awe 
which  captured  me  on  looking  upon  one  who  had 
just  been  at  the  gate  of  Paradise. 

When  about  twelve  years  old  I  was  taken 
from  the  mixed  dame-school  and  placed  under 
the  master  of  a  private  school  in  our  town.  I 
had  now  to  work  more  seriously,  and  the  new 
conditions  developed  new  dispositions.  I  had 
inherited  from  my  father  a  certain  plodding 
pertinacity.  Tradition  says  that  when  preparing 
my  lessons  I  was  sometimes  so   carried   away   by 


HOME   LIFE  31 

my  eager  temper  as  to  hurl  my  books  to  the 
boundaries  of  the  room,  and,  I  suspect,  strong 
expletives  after  them,  for  no  better  reason  than 
that  they  refused  to  explain  themselves  quickly 
enough  to  my  impatient  understanding.  Such 
outbursts  might  well  appear  to  argue  a  puling 
breakdown  of  the  pertinacious  attitude.  Yet 
the  fact  that  I  would  almost  immediately  after- 
wards pick  up  the  inoffensive  projectile  is  against 
this  view.  I  feel  pretty  sure  that  these 
vehement  kickings  against  an  imposed  task, 
traces  of  which  survived  in  much  later  years, 
were  useful  to  me.  The  short  explosive  fit  gave 
full  satisfaction  to  an  impatient  impulse,  while 
it  served,  perhaps,  indirectly,  as  a  few  rapid 
pacings  of  the  room  might  have  done,  to  stoke 
up  the  fire  of  the  sustained  effort. 

I  was  now  living  at  home,  and  came  once  more 
under  the  closer  influence  of  parents  and  sisters. 
I  began  about  this  time  to  be  promoted  to  com- 
panionship with  my  nearest  sister  in  her  country 
wa.lks.  I  recall  some  in  the  early  spring  to  farms 
lying  near  the  town  in  sheltered  hollows,  where 
the  first  scented  violets  and  primroses  were  to  be 
found.  I  doubt  whether  any  other  days  have 
for  me  in  memory  quite  the  serenity  of  those  first 
spring  days  spent  with  a  sister  or  two  in  meadows, 
woods,  or  deep-banked  lanes.  The  most  thrilling 
moments  in  these  early  rambles  came  with  the 
first  note  of  the  cuckoo.  We  awaited  it  with  a 
tense  eagerness,  for  we  knew  that  we  had  to 
run — run  as  if  for  life — on  the  first  hearing  of  it 
if  we  wanted  "  good  luck  "  for  the  year. 


82  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

Besides  the  walks  there  were  drives  into  the 
country  with  father  and  mother.  On  entering 
the  larger  and  more  imposing  Crowpill  House  they 
set  their  face  against  vulgar  display ;  and  the 
single  horse  and  phaeton  continued  to  be  the  one 
"  turn-out  "  for  our  drives.  So  we  children  had 
to  sit  squeezed  together  rather  tightly  behind 
our  seniors.  One  advantage  which  this  position 
brought  me  v/as  the  enjoyment  of  the  fragrance 
of  father's  cigar,  a  luxury  in  which  he  indulged 
only  during  the  relaxation  of  a  drive.  Our 
favourite  directions  were  westwards  towards  the 
Quantocks,  past  pretty  villages  like  Durleigh, 
Enmore,  and  Spaxton.  Sometimes  we  would  go 
to  the  north-east  of  the  town  along  the  Bath  road, 
so  as  to  see  the  pretty  villages  of  Edington  and 
Cossington.  We  children  had  imbibed  much  of 
our  love  of  flowers  from  our  mother,  whose  great 
delight  on  a  drive  was  to  persuade  father  to  stop 
at  the  gate  of  a  cottage  garden  so  that  she  might 
have  a  full  enjoyment  of  the  flower-show.  Her 
passion  for  these  gardens  got  to  be  known  by  the 
cottagers,  who  in  those  days  had  no  class  hostility 
to  "  carriage  folk  "  ;  whereby  it  came  about  that 
they  would  steal  out  to  the  garden  gate  and  talk 
with  her  about  the  flowers,  and  perhaps  present 
her  with  a  bunch,  or  even  with  a  root  or  two  of 
some  choice  rarity  to  be  planted  in  her  own  garden. 

Father  had  consideration  for  his  horse,  and  we 
boys  were  early  accustomed  to  ease  the  equine 
task  by  getting  out  and  walking  up  the  hills.  I 
have  kept  this  habit  unbroken,  and  sometimes 
have  got  near  a  wrangle  with  a  Swiss  or  Italian 


WATCHET  33 

driver  by  insisting  on  dismounting  at  the  foot  of 
a  hill. 

A  closer  glimpse  of  the  Quantocks  came  with 
the  annual  outing  to  Watchet,  our  favourite  bath- 
ing resort.  We  younger  ones  went  down  closely 
packed  in  a  cart.  I  can  still  recall  my  sensation 
of  enlarged  freedom  on  leaving  behind  the  liigh 
hedgerows,  provokingly  exclusive  to  eager  young 
glances,  and  finding  myself  facing  the  wide  open 
slopes,  sheeny  with  bracken.  The  bleating  of  a 
few  sheep,  which  broke  the  perfect  silence  of 
the  hills  with  a  note  of  half-sad  abandonment, 
deepened  this  sense  of  a  new  freedom.  The  halt 
at  the  inn  "  Castle  of  Comfort,"  set  back  against  a 
wood,  and  a  stroll  into  the  wood  itself,  gave  us 
other  experiences  of  the  blissful  quietude  of  places. 

At  Watchet  the  family  managed  somehow  to 
stow  itself  away  above  a  baker's  shop,  where 
delicious  biscuits,  warm  from  the  oven,  were  to  be 
counted  upon.  These  summer  weeks  at  the  seaside 
were  a  hygienic  institution.  Our  father,  as  an  old 
"  salt,"  was  a  great  believer  in  the  virtues  of  sea- 
water,  and  I  should  not  like  to  say  at  what  tender 
age  he  began  to  subject  each  of  us  to  his  rigorous 
bathing  system.  The  sky  might  be  cloudy  and  the 
wind  chilly,  but  nothing  was  to  interrupt  his  "  cure." 
Three  dips  apiece  were  the  regulation  length  of  the 
bath,  father  doing  the  dipping  and  then  handing 
us  over  to  mother  and  the  maid  to  be  well  rubbed. 
I  still  recall  my  feeling  of  terror  lest  I  should  not 
be  ready  for  the  next  blinding  submersion. 

Other  enlargements  of  my  acquaintance  with  my 
county  and  its  inhabitants  were  obtained  by  occa- 

4 


34  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

sional  visits  to  the  homes  of  my  father's  friends. 
I  was  still  in  my  early  teens  when  I  stayed  for 
some  long  summer  weeks  at  the  house  of  a  Wes- 
leyan  family.  We  had  become  acquainted  partly- 
through  business  relations  and  partly  through 
a  friendship  formed  by  the  daughters  of  the  two 
houses  at  a  Wesleyan  boarding-school.  It  was  a 
large  house  with  a  farm  attached  and  a  freshwater 
river  close  by.  There  were  bathing  and  lowing  of 
a  rough  sort  to  be  got ;  but  what  I  most  enjoyed 
was  a  long  day  in  the  hayfield,  ending  with  a 
ride  home  on  the  warm,  fragrant  hay,  the  joy  being 
intensified  by  the  subconscious  feeling  of  insecurity 
as  the  wagon  and  its  load  went  bumping  and 
swaying  from  side  to  side  along  the  deep-rutted 
lane — or  "  drove,"  as  we  called  it.  It  was  in 
this  hayfield  that  I  was  initiated  into  the  mystery 
of  cider-drinking,  which  experience  involved  a 
moral  as  well  as  a  physical  qualm,  as  the 
consciousness  of  breaking  a  family  tradition  of 
temperance  became  clear  to  me. 

The  respectably  large  family  included  a  number 
of  sons,  all  older  than  myself.  As  accommodation 
was  limited,  I  had  to  share  their  many-bedded 
dormitory.  It  was  a  fine  moment  when  they 
would  come  to  bed  and  wake  me  out  of  a  light  half- 
expectant  sleep.  Their  mutual  chaffings  were  an 
endless  enjoyment  for  me.  As  an  unsophisticated 
youngster,  I  naturally  came  in  for  a  good  amount 
of  "  gammoning,"  as  they  called  it.  But  for  all 
their  teasing — which  was  good-natured  enough — I 
felt  uplifted  and  flattered  by  their  companionship. 
Although  two  of  them  were  reading  for  a  university 


THE   SOMERSETSHIRE   FARMER  35 

degree,  they  would  all  when  at  home  talk  the  broad 
Somerset  dialect.  The  father  made  a  striking 
figure  in  his  black  swallow-tail  coat  and  knicker- 
bockers, and  his  long  silver  tresses  well  combed 
back  from  the  forehead.  He  represented  the  older 
Methodist  type,  and  the  easygoing  and  rather 
frivolous  ways  of  his  sons  were  a  puzzle  to  him. 
I  looked  forward  to  the  late  evening  hour  when  we 
would  sit  on  the  kitchen  settle  close  to  the  fire,  and 
I  would  pry  into  the  black  soot-crusted  chimney  to 
catch  a  glimpse  of  a  star.  At  such  a  time  the  old 
gentleman  would  give  good  advice  to  his  boys, 
taking  it  in  good  part  when  in  their  replies  they 
fell  to  a  light  chaffing  tone. 

The  kitchen  was  the  meal-room,  and  there 
morning  and  evening  prayers  were  offered  up.  The 
morning  prayer  particularly  interested  me.  The 
head  of  the  house  would  enter  the  kitchen,  sit  down 
at  the  end  of  a.  long  table,  take  out  the  Family 
Bible  from  its  drawer  and  the  spectacles  from 
their  case,  and,  without  looking  to  see  whether 
anybody  else  was  present,  begin  to  read  the 
day's  lesson.  Then,  all  of  a  sudden,  he  would 
seem  to  wake  out  of  a  fit  of  abstraction,  glance 
round  and  notice  that  only  one  or  two  v/ere 
present,  and  going  to  the  foot  of  the  stairs, 
shout  the  name  of  some  absentee— a  daughter 
perhaps,  or  a  servant.  The  late-rising  boys 
could  not  be  gra,ppled  with  in  the  morning. 
But  the  old  gentleman  got  the  best  of  it  at 
the  evening  prayers  v/hen,  deeming  a  passage 
particularly  applicable  to  one  of  them,  he  would 
rub  it  well  in  by  asking,   "  D'ye  hear  that,  Mais 


36  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

(master)  J.  ?  "  Such  personal  applications  of 
gospel  truth  were  at  that  time  not  uncommon 
among  Wesley ans.  I  remember  going  some  years 
later  into  a  small  Methodist  chapel  in  Cornwall  and 
seeing  the  preacher  (a  lay-brother,  I  fancy),  who 
was  holding  forth  on  that  queer  archaic  theme 
modesty  in  female  dress  and  deportment,  suddenly 
fix  his  eye  on  two  smartly  dressed  girls  in  the 
gallery.  The  stern  look  was  instantly  followed 
by  the  question,  "  What  would  John  Wesley  say 
if  he  were  here  this  afternoon  and  saw  all  this 
finery  in  the  house  of  God  ?  " 

It  was  at  this  hospitable  house  that  I  came 
across  my  first  love-story  ;  and  my  lasting  im- 
pression of  its  very  serious  and  matter-of-fact 
ways  is  quaintly  complicated  by  after-pulsations 
of  the  romantic  sentiment  awakened  by  a 
stealthy  perusal  of  this  little  book. 

During  the  second  period  of  my  living  at 
home  its  atmosphere  began  to  have  considerable 
influence  on  my  intellectual  development.  At 
the  time  of  which  I  write,  books  were  neither  so 
plentiful  nor  so  cheap  as  they  are  to-day.  My 
mother  took  a  certain  part  in  my  intellectual 
upbringing.  I  still  have  a  copy  of  "  Robinson 
Crusoe"  which  she  gave  me  on  my  twelfth  birth- 
day. When,  in  penning  a  letter,  I  could  not,  as 
Sentimental  Tommy  could,  hit  upon  the  "  inevit- 
able "  word,  I  used  to  repair  to  her,  because  she 
had — so  I  put  it — such  "  a  flow  of  language."  I 
associate  her  in  a  peculiarly  close  manner  with 
the  exciting  days  of  the  Crimean  War.  At  this 
time  we  were  taking  in  the  Illustrated  London  News, 


READING  37 

as  well  as  a  boys'  illustrated  paper  in  which  there 
was  running  a  story  entitled  "  The  Arctic  Crusoe  "  ; 
and  mother  would  be  as  eager  as  ourselves  to  seize 
upon  a  new  number  of  the  journal,  putting  our 
patience  at  times  to  a  scarcely  endurable  strain  by 
keeping  us  waiting  for  our  turn.  We  got  to  know 
the  names  and  figures  of  all  the  English  and  French 
generals  in  the  Crimea,  and  we  shared,  no  doubt, 
in  the  common  detestation  of  the  Emperor  Nicholas, 
or  "  Old  Nick,"  as  we  dubbed  him.  Of  the  Indian 
Mutiny,  which  so  closely  followed  the  Crimean  War, 
I  remember  hardly  anything.  Probably,  by  being 
away  from  home  at  school,  I  heard  the  less  of  this 
terrible  struggle.  I  can,  however,  recall  how  proud 
— almost  wickedly  proud  for  good  peace-loving  folk 
— we  Baptists  were  on  hearing  of  the  heroic  feats 
of  our  co-religionist.  Sir  Henry  Havelock. 

The  principal  cultured  influence  of  my  home 
came  from  my  sisters  and  the  friends  who  had 
stimulated  and  encouraged  their  reading.  We 
were  not  at  this  stage  permitted  to  read  the  longer 
novels  of  Dickens  or  Thackeray,  whose  names  were, 
I  think,  a  little  suspect  to  good  religious  people  as 
savouring  of  an  impious  kind  of  ridicule.  But  we 
knew  them  and  others  by  name,  and  were  keenly 
curious  about  them.  My  sisters  were  now  growing 
into  womanhood,  and  they  appear  to  have  had  a 
fair  number  of  reading  friends.  When  our  pulpit 
was  empty  through  a  resignation  or  an  illness,  a 
"supply"  would  be  sent  down  from  Bristol  College, 
an  arrangement  which  ensured  us  an  occasional 
week-end  visitor.  Among  the  better  read  of  these 
students  who  thus  visited  our  house  was  Thomas 


38  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

(or,  as  we  familiarly  called  him,  "Tom")  Fuller, 
the  grandson  of  a  once  renowned  divine,  Andrew 
Fuller,  and  later  Sir  Thomas  Fuller,  the  friend  and 
biographer  of  Cecil  Rhodes.  He  and  others  brought 
a  keener  intellectual  air  into  our  home,  which 
stimulated  the  mind  of  my  father  as  well  as  that 
of  his  more  eager  daughters,  while  even  we  younger 
ones  were  stirred  to  a  wondering  curiosity  by  their 
far-ranging  talk. 

Books,  too,  with  ravishing  bindings,  if  not  also 
with  ravishing  titles,  were  now  stealing  into  our 
home.  Among  the  precious  ones  that  I  dis- 
covered, at  this  time  or  soon  afterv/ards,  was  a 
dear  little  diamond  edition  of  Shakespeare  be- 
longing to  mj^  second  sister,  into  which  now 
and  again  as  a  great  treat  I  was  allowed  to 
dip.  And  it  was  about  this  time  that  I  got 
my  first  acquaintance  with  Longfellow  and 
other  safe  "  homish  "  poets.  Among  the  books 
which  helped  to  develop  our  humorous  turn  was 
"  Hood's  Own."  I  was  never  tired  of  looking 
at  its  "  killingly  "  funny  drawings,  and  I  revelled 
in  its  puns,  all  unaware  in  those  benighted  Victorian 
days  of  the  terrible  things  that  might  be  said 
against  such  word-play. 

Next  to  books,  music  was  the  chief  branch  of 
culture  represented  in  our  house.  When  I  was 
still  in  my  lower  teens  my  two  eldest  sisters  played 
the  piano  and  sang,  while  the  third  w^as  ripening 
into  a  symxpathetic  interpreter  of  the  instrument. 
Of  the  sesthetic  value  of  the  favourite  drawing- 
room  songs  of  this  time — the  duet  "  What  are  the 
wild    waves    saying  ?  "    "  The   May  Queen,"    and 


MUSIC  39 

other  rather  lachrymose  effusions  long  since  cast 
aside  among  the  rubbish  of  the  Victorian  era— 
the  less  said  the  better.  Yet  some  of  the 
vocal  music  of  Bishop  and  Blumenthal  had 
a  modest  worth,  and  seemed  wonderful  to  us 
until,  long  after,  we  came  to  know  such  com- 
posers as  Schubert  and  Schumann,  Grieg  and 
Brahms.  Echoes  of  those  far-off  songs  have  a 
strange  way  of  haunting  the  memory  chambers, 
and  there  is  a  musical  rendering  of  Charles 
Kingsley's  "  Three  Fishers,"  once  sung  by  a 
sister  who  has  passed  away,  that  brings  back 
the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand  with  a  scarcely 
endurable  poignancy. 

Of  outside  influences  likely  to  further  our  mental 
growth  there  is  little  to  be  said.  The  town 
was  even  worse  off  for  concerts  than  for  lectures. 
There  were  but  few  public  entertainments  of 
any  kind  ;  though  I  can  recall  one  in  which 
George  Grossmith—gra7id-pere,  I  mean — gave  us 
some  delicious  caricatures  of  public  speakers  ; 
among  which  were  interspersed  droll  songs  and 
other  "  variety  "  ingredients. 

The  migration  of  the  family  to  a  house  on  the 
river's  bank  gave  us  an  opportunity  of  seeing 
more  of  the  life  of  the  port.  Close  to  Crowpill 
were  the  docks,  with  the  daily  show  of  loading  and 
unloading.  We  admired  the  fine  fellows  who  bore 
so  easily  the  great  sacks  of  corn  into  the  ware- 
house, and  we  found  a  fascination  even  in  the 
blackened  human  figures  that  carried  up  baskets 
of  coal  from  the  vessel's  hold.  The  carriers  wore  a 
queer  canvas  head-gear,  with  a  pad-like  appendage 


40  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

behind,  on  which  the  basket  rested.  Even  to-day 
you  can  see  them  carry  up  coal  in  this  fashion 
from  vessels  moored  in  the  river,  while  hard  by 
is  heard  the  new-fangled  machinery  of  a  crane. 
Close  to  the  docks  was  a  grassy  mount,  a  delightful 
place  for  a  climb  up  and  a  deliciously  rapid  roll 
down.  Not  far  from  our  home  there  stood  a  stately 
house  of  classic  design,  then  occupied  by  one  of  the 
Browne  family,  a  Unitarian  and  a  close  friend  of 
my  father's.  It  was  known  as  "  The  Lions,"  from 
two  roughly  hewn  quadrupeds  crouching  on  the 
pillars  of  its  gate.  We  children  were  interested 
in  this  mansion  from  a  saying  about  it  :  "  When 
the  lions  hear  the  clock  strike  twelve  they  go  down 
to  the  river  and  drink."  I  dare  say  we  easily 
found  the  key  to  this  little  puzzle ;  and  I  felt 
almost  ashamed  of  my  town  when,  returning  jto  it 
in  1913,  I  overheard  a  small  girl,  on  repeating  the 
story  to  a  still  smaller  one,  rob  it  of  all  its  point  by 
omitting  the  words  "  when  the  lions  hear." 

The  great  spectacle,  however,  in  these  first 
years  at  Crowpill  was  the  water  traffic,  especially 
at  a  high  spring- tide.  The  struggles  of  our  plucky 
little  river-tug  as  she  tried  to  tow  up  a  large  barque 
or  a  string  of  smaller  vessels  through  the  winding 
reaches  of  the  river  made  appeal  to  our  boyish 
admiration.  But  best  of  all  was  the  sight  of  a 
mighty  spring-tide  bore.  Its  approach  seemed  to 
quicken  the  sleepy  Bridgwater  air  to  a  high  pitch 
of  electric  tension.  It  was  now  that  the  barge- 
men's wits  were  severely  tested.  They  used  to 
while  away  the  tedium  of  waiting  at  a  tavern  near 
our  house,  and,  very  humanly,  they  would  postpone 


GUY  FAWKES   DAY  41 

their  exit  from  the  snug  bar  to  the  last  moment. 
The  result  would  be  that  they  had  to  rush  down  the 
steep,  muddy  bank  with  unaccustomed  velocity, 
and  this  when  the  limited  powers  of  their  rather 
bandy  legs  were  still  further  reduced  by  unwisely 
prolonged  potions.  Then  would  follow  a  hulla- 
baloo of  raucous  shoutings  and  fierce  imprecations, 
such  as  must  have  shocked  our  river-god.  if  we 
possessed  such  a  divinity. 

Among  the  more  imposing  spectacles  of  the 
town  was  the  pageant  of  Guy  Fawkes  Day.  It 
took  place  on  the  large  open  space  of  the  Cornhill, 
an  excellent  site  for  the  huge  bonfire,  in  which 
we  burnt  the  effigies  of  "  Old  Nick  "  (the  Emperor 
Nicholas)  and  other  persons  obnoxious  at  the  time. 
Besides  accommodating  the  fire  and  the  crowd  of 
worshippers,  this  irregular  sort  of  "square"  offered 
in  the  back  streets  opening  upon  it  an  admir- 
able starting-point  for  the  pyrotechnic  performers. 
These  were  a  band  of  enterprising  young  townsmen, 
who  took  their  fifth  of  November  fireworks  right 
seriously,  making  their  own  squibs,  fat  giants 
fitted  into  holders  at  the  end  of  long  handles,  so 
that  they  might  be  at  a  safe  distance  from  the 
bearer's  person.  They  bleached  their  faces  or  wore 
masks,  decking  themselves  out  in  outlandish  cos- 
tumes, so  as  to  be  quite  unrecognizable.  The 
carnival  began  when  a  procession  of  these  fierce- 
looking  young  Vulcans  rushed  out  of  their  hiding- 
places  upon  the  crowd,  the  sound  of  whose  laughter, 
passing  into  shrieks  as  the  big  sparks  flew  about 
them,  gave  the  finishing  touch  to  the  weird  per- 
formance. 


42  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

Another  brilliant  show  enacted  on  this  central 
place  was  the  gathering  of  the  Mounted  Yeomanry— 
"  Yeomanry  Cavalry,"  as  we  called  them.  Neither 
the  steeds  nor  their  riders  were,  I  fancy,  above 
criticism ;  but  we  boys  were  still  happily  free 
from  an  ultra- critical  mood,  and  we  paid  our 
bucolic  sons  of  Mars  a  handsome  admiration  as 
they  rode  up  with  a  fine  rattle  of  accoutrements 
and  noisily  drew  out  their  flashing  swords.  It  was 
only  some  absurd  contretemps,  as  when  a  rustic 
horse,  maddened  by  all  this  townish  racket,  grew 
restive,  tried  to  look  like  a  biped,  and  otherwise 
misbehaved  himself,  that  could  force  a  laugh 
from  us  at  our  martial  heroes. 

Of  my  later  schooling,  between  the  ages  of  thir- 
teen and  seventeen  or  thereabouts,  I  recall  but  little 
worth  recording.  Frequency  of  change  continued. 
This  was  no  doubt  a  loss  in  some  ways.  Yet  it 
gave  me  the  opportunity  of  comparing  pedagogues 
and  their  methods.  Even  if  it  was  a  disadvantage, 
I  can  now  see  that  my  father  did  his  best  by  me. 
I  was  the  eldest  boy  in  the  family,  and  there  was 
no  precedent  to  guide  his  selection  ;  wherefore  I 
had,  in  a  sense,  to  serve  as  a  "  vile  body  "  for 
educational  experiments.  Since,  moreover,  there 
were  behind  me  three  more  boys  and  a  girl  to 
be  educated,  he  had  to  think  of  expense.  I  was 
perhaps  unfortunate  in  my  head-masters,  none 
of  whom  excited  a  lively  admiration.  I  managed 
to  hit  it  off  better  with  one  or  two  of  the  assistant 
masters. 

At  my  first  school,  in  Yeovil,  I  was  taken  up  by 
the  French  master,  one  Ternon  by  name.     I  came 


MACREADY  48 

to  him  with  a  special  recommendation.  One  of 
my  sisters,  when  at  a  boarding-school,  had  learned 
French  from  a  Mile.  Ternon,  who  entrusted  to  her 
pupil  the  precious  secret  that  she  was  the  wife  of 
the  gentleman  with  whom  she  corresponded,  and 
not  the  sister,  as  she  had  given  out  to  the  authorities. 
We  had  heard  the  story  from  my  sister,  and  Ternon 
had  through  his  wife  heard  of  the  Sully  family. 
So  we  became  good  friends.  He  taught  us  elemen- 
tary geometry,  and  I  remember  what  trouble  he 
had  to  beat  into  one  refractory  head  the  meaning 
of  the  mathematical  conceptions,  "  a  straight  line," 
and  the  rest. 

One  experience  at  this  Yeovil  school  has  etched 
itself  deep  into  my  memory- tablet.  Macready, 
who  had  retired  from  the  stage  and  was  living  at 
Sherborne,  came  over  to  the  town  to  give  recita- 
tions for  some  charitable  object.  I  was  taken  to 
the  hall  to  hear  him.  As  illustrating  som.e  keenness 
for  culture  among  the  Bridgwater  Baptists  of  this 
time,  I  may  add  that  our  minister,  together  with 
my  brother-in-law  and  my  eldest  sister,  drove  to 
Yeovil  in  order  to  hear  the  recitations,  retm'ning 
the  same  evening — a  matter  of  some  fift}'^  miles. 
I  think  I  owe  the  privilege  of  hearing  the  tragedian 
to  their  visit  rather  than  to  any  enlightened  views 
of  my  head-master.  Novf  and  again,  even  to-day, 
I  seem  to  catch  faint  echoes  of  the  passionate  note 
which  Macready  threw  into  his  rendering  of  "  Alex- 
ander's Feast,"  and  of  the  biting,  almost  hissing, 
note  upon  which  he  gave  out  slowly  and  em- 
phatically the  lines  of  "  Lady  Clara  Vere  de  Vere." 

The  last  two  years  of  my  schooldays  at  a  public 


44  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

Dissenter's  "college"  at  Taunton  were  the  most 
enjoyable  part  of  them.  I  was,  I  think,  a  good 
healthy  specimen  for  transplanting  to  the  soil  of 
a  public  school,  being  vmencumbered  by  any  ten- 
dencies towards  moping  or  dreamy  abstraction. 
My  schoolfellows  seemed  to  find  me  companionable, 
and  rewarded  me  by  placing  me  in  their  list  of 
popular  fellows.  I  threw  myself  with  a  certain 
enthusiasm  into  the  games,  and  took  part  in  school 
matches.  I  did  perhaps  but  slender  justice  to  the 
classical  teaching  of  the  head-master  ;  but  I  seem 
to  have  done  fairly  well  in  mathematics;  and  one 
of  my  prizes,  I  remember,  was  for  German,  a  subject 
which  at  that  time  was  very  badly  taught. 

If  the  rather  dry  formality  of  the  head-master 
was  discouraging  to  our  impulses  of  attachment, 
we  found  a  delightfully  unconventional  and  ex- 
pansive soul  in  the  second  master,  who  in  those 
benighted  days  actually  taught  us,  in  addition  to 
Latin  and  Greek  and  other  literary  subjects,  the 
elements  of  chemistry.  His  most  striking  physical 
feature  was  a  notable  paunch.  The  head,  too,  was 
of  unusual  size,  the  clean-shaven  face  Habby  and 
pasty,  and  the  eyes  large  and  protuberant.  He 
carried  his  heav}'  weight  with  a  surprising  light- 
ness of  tread.  He  was  hopelessly  myopic,  and 
had  to  peer  quite  closely  at  notes  or  other  things 
which  he  wanted  to  see  clearly,  frequently  calling  in 
the  aid  of  a  hand-lens.  His  defective  sight  handi- 
capped him  sadly  in  maintaining  discipline,  yet  he 
knew  how  to  frustrate  the  attempts  of  rash  pupils 
to  score  off  his  infirmity.  If,  on  approaching  the 
classroom,    he   heard   signs   of  disorder   he   would 


LEAVING   SCHOOL  45 

enter  as  noiselessly  as  a  cat,  his  thumbs  hitched  on 
to  the  armholes  of  his  waistcoat  and  his  huge  body 
and  head  gently  swaying  from  side  to  side.  Since 
the  acute  hearing  did  much  to  make  up  for  the 
partial  blindness,  he  would  sometimes  show  an 
tmcanny  adroitness  in  pouncing  upon  an  offender. 
Like  Dogberry,  he  had  his  standing  jokes,  some  of 
which  were  poor  enough,  such  as  "As  long  as  your 
leg  !  " — an  expression  he  was  wont  to  bring  out, 
accompanying  the  word  with  a  slap  on  his  fat 
thigh,  when  a  tyro  in  Greek  made  the  omega  short. 
He  seemed  now  and  again  to  sniff  our  boredom 
under  the  infliction  of  his  stale  repetitions,  and 
would  coaxingly  apologize  by  prefacing  a  thread- 
bare jest  with  the  words  "  For  the  sake  of  the  new 
boys."  He  was  no  doubt  a  bit  of  a  himibug  and  of 
a  mountebank  also.  But  at  least  he  was  humanly 
congenial,  and  we  had  something  near  an  affection 
for  the  humorous  old  bo}'- 

I  left  school  at  the  age  of  seventeen  to  take  a 
prescribed  place  in  the  ofhce  of  my  father  and  micle, 
and  accepted  my  destiny  without  misgivings.  I 
felt  the  common  regi-et  at  saymg  good-bye  to  the 
playground  and  the  school  chums.  But  the  love 
of  home  was  stronfj  in  me,  and  I  looked  forward 
to  its  nevr  and  fuller  life  \\ith  eager  hope.  The 
schools  had  failed  in  certain  respects.  They  had 
done  next  to  notliing  to  awaken  a  love  of  literature. 
Yet  the  later  studies  had  begotten  a  certain  thirst 
for  knowledge  :  for  which  reason,  on  accepting 
the  office,  I  stipulated  for  a  "  study "  where  m 
the  evening  I  could  continue  undisturbed  my  old 


46  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

battle  with  the  books.  I  found  an  excellent 
hermit's  cell  in  a  sort  of  loft  of  one  of  the  store- 
houses in  our  yard.  It  was  here,  whilst  reading 
John  Foster's  Essays,  that  I  began  to  descry  dimly 
some  of  the  problems  of  philosophy. 

It  was,  I  think,  in  this  same  loft  that  I  began 
another  kind  of  activity.  During  the  last  half- 
year  at  the  Taunton  school  I  was  drawn  into 
the  current  of  a  religious  revival,  and  became 
obsessed  with  the  idea  of  "  doing  good."  The 
humanitarian  impulse  directed  itself  towards  the 
captains  of  our  vessels,  of  whom  I  saw  a  good 
deal.  Their  hardships  under  the  continual  menace 
of  storms  touched  my  imagination,  and  I  used  to 
gather  them  about  me  and  read  to  them.  I  doubt 
whether  the  experiment  effected  much  beyond 
winning  their  recognition  of  my  friendly  attitude. 

My  three  elder  sisters  were  now  at  home — "  for 
good,"  as  v/e  put  it — and  the  family  life  grew  fuller 
and  richer.  Differences  of  age  were  much  less  of 
a  barrier  to  sympathy  than  they  had  been.  There 
would  be  interesting  personal  matters,  such  as  a 
callow  love-affair,  to  be  confided  to  the  brother  in 
the  hope  that  he  might  help  to  solve  some  teasing 
girlish  problem.  The  home  was  a  brighter  one 
now  that  we  had  reached  "  years  of  discretion  " 
and  could  have  our  say  about  books,  house  decora- 
tion and  the  like,  and  even  about  such  serious 
things  as  Church  matters  and  politics.  The  culture- 
influence  had  widened  and  deepened  during  the 
three  or  four  years  of  my  absence  at  school.  My 
father's  kindly  disposition  exposed  him  to  the 
infection  of  my  sisters'  developing  tastes.     I  well 


CHARLES   DICKENS  47 

remember  the  evening  when  they  won  him  over  to 
Charles  Dickens.  A  girl  friend  was  staying  with 
us,  and  one  of  Dickens's  novels  was  being  read 
aloud  when  my  father  entered  the  room.  For 
some  time  he  pretended  to  be  reading  his  news- 
paper ;  but  the  living  voice  asserted  its  supe- 
riority, and  very  soon  an  imperfectly  smothered 
laugh  betrayed  his  keen  interest  in  our  story.  We 
chaffed  him  on  his  swift  conversion,  and  after  this 
had  but  little  fear  of  his  interfering  with  our 
novel-reading. 

The  reading  of  Dickens  aloud  strikes  me,  on 
looking  back,  as  the  way  to  get  the  fullest  enjoy- 
ment out  of  him.  We  youngsters  at  any  rate 
"  just  had  "  to  get  a  sympathetic  laugh  or  sigh  of 
pity  when  following  the  history  of  his  people  ;  so 
reading  together  became  almost  necessary.  The 
"  wrongest  "  way  of  appreciating  his  stories — to 
judge  from  my  own  experience-^was  to  hear  the 
author  himself  read  them  in  public,  as  he  did 
towards  the  end  of  his  life.  I  have  never  been 
able  quite  to  shake  off  the  disillusioning  and 
almost  nauseating  effect  of  the  "  Christmas  Carol  " 
coming — with  no  adequate  voice  to  support  it — 
out  of  the  mouth  of  that  "  got-up  "  dandified 
jeune-vieux,  with  the  rouge,  the  limelight,  and 
the  rest  of  it. 

To  return  to  my  father :  I  noticed  in  other  ways 
how  at  this  time  his  mind  was  relaxing  its  old  tight 
grij)  on  the  Puritanic  code.  One  Sunday  after- 
noon my  brother  and  I  were  walking  with  him 
towards  the  Hampfields.  A  pond  we  passed  was 
frozen,  and  among  the  skaters  on  it  we  saw  the 


48  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

son  of  one  of  my  father's  Quaker  friends.  As  he 
came  up  to  us  my  father  tried  hard  to  look  shocked 
and  to  bring  out  a  Sabbatarian  rebuke.  Yet  we 
boys  felt  sure  that  his  displeasure  was  at  least 
half  feigned  ;  and  we  boldly  backed  up  the  skater's 
plea  for  the  perfect  innocence  of  his  recreation. 

Music  now  became  for  me  an  engrossing 
interest.  I  had  been  taking  lessons  on  the  piano 
at  Taunton,  and  even  the  inroad  they  made  on 
the  playhour  did  not  set  me  against  the  pursuit. 
On  returning  home,  I  followed  up  these  lessons 
by  others  on  the  organ  and  on  the  rudiments 
of  "  thorough  bass."  I  was  even  bold  enough  to 
indulge  in  extemporizations  on  the  piano.  My 
uncle  took  a  serious  view  of  this  new  craze  for 
music,  warning  my  father  against  its  dangers. 
But  happily  for  me  the  objection  was  overruled. 
The  organ-lessons  were  given  in  our  chapel.  I 
had  for  a  blower  a  rough-looking  character  who 
used  to  magnify  his  office  in  a  comical  way,  greedily 
swallowing  my  flattering  suggestion  that  the 
secret  of  organ-playing  lay  deep-seafed  in  the 
blower's  sustaining  breath.  Music  now  began  to 
fill  a  larger  place  in  our  home  recreations.  My 
father's  advance  in  tolerance  is  illustrated  by  the 
fact  that  a  drinking  song  was  now  introduced  into 
the  drawing-room,  smuggled  in,  forsooth,  by  no 
less  serious  a  person  than  our  minister,  who  would 
give  out  in  fine  rollicking  style  something  like 
the  following  lines  : 

Minheer  Van  Dunck,  though  he  never  got  drunk, 
Sipped  his  brandy  and  water  gaily. 


RELIGIOUS   EXPERIENCE  49 

I  was  strangely  moved  by  this  daring  assault  upon 
the  sober  traditions  of  our  house,  experiencing 
for  a  moment  an  almost  dislocating  shock,  as  if 
some  Puritanic  fibre  in  my  spiritual  organism  had 
snapped.  Yet,  if  fearsome,  the  joy  of  sudden 
expansion  was  real  and  intense. 

Our  musical  achievements  were  greatly  re- 
stricted by  the  circumstance  that  all  of  us,  girls 
and  boys  alike,  learned  only  that  greatly  over- 
rated instrument,  the  piano.  Looking  back,  I 
regret  that  the  boys,  at  any  rate,  had  not  taken 
up  the  violin  and  other  instruments,  so  that  we 
might  have  indulged  ourselves  in  concerted 
chamber  music  like  another  Baptist  family  I  had 
known  in  Yeovil. 

We  acquired  a  certain  fame  among  our  friends 
as  a  musical  family.  The  younger  members  of  a 
Quaker  family  that  we  knew,  having  no  piano  of 
their  own,  would  come  down  to  Crowpill  to  get 
their  music.  The  Friends  of  that  date  still  looked 
askance  at  the  idea  of  a  musical  instrument  in 
the  house. 

On  returning  home  I  entered  upon  a  stage  of 
religious  experience  of  the  deeper  kind.  My 
attainment  of  the  age  when  new  emotions  are 
astir,  the  effect  of  the  "  revival  "  at  Taunton, 
together  with  the  constant  and  penetrating 
influence  of  the  home,  had,  no  doubt,  to  do  with 
this  more  agitated  passage  in  the  current  of  my 
development.  Supreme  among  the  influences  of 
the  family  atmosphere  was  my  affection  for  my 
father.  My  heart  was  at  this  time  drawn  out 
to    him    by    new    and    yet    stronger    cords.      He 

5 


50  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

was,  I  know,  set  upon  my  joining  the  Church, 
and  his  longing  was  satisfied.  I  was  baptized,  and 
took  part  in  the  rites  and  the  whole  life  of  our 
Church. 

In  all  this  I  was  quite  sincere,  and  became 
"  devout  "  in  my  father's  sense  of  the  word.  I 
learned  to  know  all  the  ups  and  downs  of  the 
religious  consciousness,  from  the  dulling,  dispiriting 
effect  of  an  unsympathetic  minister  and  a  dry 
sermon  up  to  the  spiritual  elevation  and  recrea- 
tion effected  by  their  opposites.  My  religious 
experience,  though  it  included  a  certain  amount 
of  solitary  meditation  and  prayer,  was  essentially 
social  in  its  texture.  It  was  a  sharing  in  a  common 
attitude,  in  a  common  group  of  emotions,  and  in 
conjoint  acts  of  confession,  prayer,  and  thanks- 
giving— a  variety,  by  the  way,  which  William 
James  seems  almost  completely  to  have  over- 
looked when  classifying  the  main  types  of 
religious  experience. 

Our  common  religious  life  was  not  withdrawn 
into  a  sort  of  hothouse  impervious  to  out-of-door 
influences.  We  were  able  to  see  the  droll  side  of 
some  of  the  proceedings  at  prayer-meeting  and 
Church-meeting.  We  were  free  to  discuss  religious 
questions  and  to  express  our  independent  views. 
About  this  time  my  eldest  sister  became  engaged 
to  a  "  man  of  thought  " — to  use  an  expression 
not  unknown  in  Somerset — a  Churchman  who 
read,  among  other  writers,  Carlyle,  Ruskin,  and 
Goethe,  and  was  abreast  of  the  advancing  wave 
of  Biblical  criticism ;  and  no  serious  objection 
was    made    to    the    engagement   by    my   parents. 


ge:rald  massey  51 

This  meant  a  considerable  enlargement  of  my 
spiritual  outlook. 

Of  more  public  activities  outside  the  chapel 
the  most  important  came  to  me  with  my  appoint- 
ment as  joint-secretary  to  the  Bridgwater  branch 
of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association.  My 
father  had  been  the  beloved  Sunday-school  teacher 
of  the  founder  of  the  Association,  George  (after- 
wards Sir  George)  Williams.  So  my  appointment 
to  share  in  the  secretariate  would  naturally  be 
agreeable  to  him.  ]\Iy  colleague  Avas  the  son  of 
one  of  the  most  prominent  Conservative  lawyers 
and  Churchmen  in  the  town.  The  appointing  of 
him,  along  Avith  the  son  of  the  uncompromising 
Dissenter  and  Radical,  served,  no  doubt,  to  em- 
phasize the  broad  "  undenominational  "  spirit  of 
the  Association.  We  had  a  reading-room  high  up 
under  the  dome  of  our  market-house.  Among  our 
undertakings  was  a  pleasure  party  by  water  down 
the  river  and  the  Bristol  Channel. 

My  great  success  when  officer  of  the  Association 
was  the  securing  of  Gerald  Massey  as  lecturer ;  he 
had  shortly  before  brought  out  a  collection  of 
"  Poetical  Works."  It  was  a  thrilling  experience 
to  write  to  a  poet,  and  a  yet  more  delicious  one  to 
have  him  as  our  guest  at  Crowpill.  I  have  quite 
forgotten  even  the  subject  of  his  lecture,  but  I  can 
still  recall  his  appearance  and  something  of  his 
talk.  He  was  an  ideal  specimen  of  the  poet  for 
a  first  vision  by  admiring  young  eyes.  His  mien 
had,  it  is  true,  nothing  of  the  "divine  madness," 
nor  did  he  give  himself  the  airs  and  mannerisms 
that  are  said  to  be  m.ore   or  less  characteristic  of 


52  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

a  certain  type  of  singer.  But  he  had  a  beautiful 
face,  and  his  fine  features  and  his  brilHant  eyes 
with  tender  depths  in  them,  framed  in  by  a  mass 
of  thick  hair,  remain,  spite  of  time's  blurring, 
one  of  the  most  cherished  portraits  in  memory's 
picture-gallery.  At  first  I  was  a  little  uncertain 
how  a  poet  would  fit  himself  into  the  plain 
homely  ways  of  our  house.  But  my  apprehen- 
sions proved  to  be  quite  groundless,  and  his 
visit  was  one  unbroken  delight,  to  parents 
hardly  less  than  to  children.  I  have  since  met 
other  and  greater  poets,  but  never  reduplicated 
the  rapturous  experience  which  my  first  poet 
brought  me. 

The  life  of  our  town  grew  during  these  years 
more  and  more  interesting  to  me.  The  river 
became  mine  in  a  new  sense,  now  that  my  day's 
work  required  me  to  know  the  whereabouts  and 
the  projected  movements  of  our  vessels.  I  saw, 
too,  more  of  the  commotion  of  market-  and  fair- 
days.  At  that  time  the  marketing  was  done  not 
only  in  the  market-house  and  railed-ih  space  in 
front  of  it,  but  in  the  streets.  The  noise  and 
hurry-scurry  when  the  poor  frightened  bullocks 
and  sheep  got  out  of  hand  and  rushed  blindly 
wherever  an  open  space  in  the  crowded  street 
seemed  to  offer  itself,  was  highly  exciting  to  boyish 
spirits,  untroubled  as  yet  by  too  much  sympathetic 
sentiment.  St.  Matthew's  Fair,  held  in  September 
in  St.  Matthew's  Field,  lasted  three  whole  days, 
and  brought  into  the  town  "  a  sight  of  folk." 
How  the  saint  who  gave  it  his  name  could  have 
tolerated  all  its  revellings  with  their  extra  quota 


THE   PRINCEITES  53 

of  sickening  drunkenness,  I  was,  and  still  am, 
quite  unable  to  say. 

One  of  the  sights  which  now  made  the  town 
gape  was  the  triumphal  entry  of  the  Princeites, 
or  followers  of  the  once  modest  evangelical  curate, 
Mr.  Prince.  This  curious  community  housed  itself 
in  the  Agapemone,  at  Charlynch,  the  same  year 
that  I  returned  to  Bridgwater.  Although  they 
hid  themselves  for  the  most  part  behind  the  high 
walls  of  their  "Abode  of  Love,"  they  managed, 
when  they  came  out  into  the  daylight,  to  make 
their  presence  as  imposing  as  possible.  They  were 
well-to-do  people,  and  I  seem  vaguely  to  recall  the 
commotion  in  our  sleepy  little  town  when  they 
drove  into  it  in  great  splendour  with  four  bay 
horses,  outriders,  postilions,  and — to  give  the 
needed  touch  of  the  formidable — a  number  of 
bloodhounds.  Their  approach  was  announced  by 
heralds  crying,  "  Blessed  is  he  who  cometh  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord  !  "  As  might  have  been 
expected,  this  exciting  invasion  of  somnolent 
Bridgwater  by  noisy  commotion  dimmed  for 
our  eyes  the  glorious  excitement  of  the  daily 
coach  as  it  dashed  into  the  town  and  pulled  up 
at  its  principal  hotel. 

The  tradesmen  of  the  town  were  required  to 
address  their  parcels  to  "My  Lord  the  Prince," 
and  a  story  still  runs  in  Bridgwater  that  the  chief 
draper  lost  their  custom  by  refusing  to  comply 
with  the  condition.  The  double  insolence  of  appro- 
priating the  title  "  Lord  "  and  transmuting  "  Mr. 
Prince  "  into  "  the  Prince  "  suggests  a  touch  of 
distinctly  morbid   megalomania.     There   seems  to 


54  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

be  no  room  in  Prince's  case  for  the  plea,  urged  by 
Mrs.  Oliphant  in  her  "  Life  of  Edward  Irving," 
that  divine  greatness  had  been  thrust  upon  him  by 
his  idolators.  Yet  we  have  the  strange  fact  that 
Mr.  Prince,  the  curate,  drew  men  of  other  Churches 
than  his  own  by  the  earnestness  of  his  exhortations, 
and  that  when  he  left  the  Charlynch  church  to 
found  his  society  he  carried  his  vicar  with  him. 
Does  there,  one  wonders,  always  lurk  in  a  strong 
personal  fascination  the  microbe  of  a  sinister 
disposition  to  impose  upon  others  as  well  as  upon 
oneself  ? 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixties  the  Volunteer 
movement  contributed  to  our  town  a  second  mili- 
tar}^  display.  We  youngsters  quizzed  the  Volun- 
teers with  critical  eyes.  One  of  their  first  captains, 
I  remember,  acquired  from  his  unusual  height  the 
familiar  sobriquet  of  "  Long  John."  The  almost 
Quakerish  modesty  of  the  uniform,  a,fter  the  gor- 
geous array  of  the  Yeomanry,  may  have  disposed 
us  to  ridicule  their  pretensions.  I  remember  a 
rather  saucy  conundrum  invented  about  this  time  : 
"  Why  are  the  Volunteers  like  Lord  Nelson  ?  " 
the  answer  to  v/hich  was  :  "  Because  the  last  thing 
that  Lord  Nelson  did  was  to  die  for  his  country, 
and  that  is  the  last  thing  the  Volunteers  would  do." 

The  affairs  of  the  larger  world  now  began  to 
acquire  a  greater  hold  upon  my  attention.  My 
father  was  in  this  respect  also  my  instructor 
and  model.  For  him  the  religious  life  acquired 
spaciousness  and  adventurous  courage  in  the 
missionary  field.  On  the  walls  of  Crowpill  House 
there   hung   portraits   which   made   us   youngsters 


POLITICS  65 

acquainted  with  some  of  his  missionary  heroes, 
such  as  WiUiam  Knibb,  of  Jamaica,  the  strenuous 
pioneer  of  the  movement  for  the  emancipation  of 
slaves ;  the  scholarly  Dr.  W.  Carey,  of  India ; 
Robert  Moffat,  of  South  African  fame,  and  John 
Williams,  of  the  Pacific  Islands.  The  picture  of  the 
last  chased  into  the  sea  by  his  cannibal  murderers 
was  of  poignant  interest ;  and  the  family  story 
relates  that  it  had  later  to  be  withdrawn  as  too 
terrible  for  very  young  eyes.  Side  by  side  with 
these  hung  the  portraits  of  my  father's  two 
"  Tribunes  of  the  People,"  Cobden  and  Bright, 
Edward  Miall,  the  editor  of  the  Nonconformist,  and 
other  Liberal  worthies.  These  mural  portraits  set 
us  j^oungsters  thinking ;  and  I  remember  wonder- 
ing, among  other  things,  where  Bright,  the  Quaker 
and  lover  of  peace,  could  have  got  his  rather 
ferocious  mastiff-like  lower  jav/.  The  more  enthu- 
siastic side  of  our  Liberalism  was  nourished  by 
our  father's  readings  and  by  talks  about  Kossuth, 
Garibaldi,  and  other  revolutionary  liberators  of 
their  country  from  the  foreigner. 

My  father  was  a  keen  politician,  and  I  some- 
times feel  a  bit  ashamed  as  I  recollect  how  little 
of  his  fervour  I  have  displayed.  In  municipal 
politics,  indeed,  he  took  hardly  any  part,  not  so 
much,  I  think,  because  titles  and  robes  had  no 
attraction  for  him  as  because  he  was  scared  off 
by  the  manner  in  v/hich  offices  were  apt  to  be  filled 
up.  All  the  more,  he  threw  himself  into  the  fray 
of  the  parliamentary  contest.  When  still  young, 
we  were  taken  at  election  times  to  see,  from  a 
shop  window  overlooking  the  Cornhill,  the  hustings 


56  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

with  its  gay  banners,  its  resetted  orators,  and,  best 
of  all,  the  motley  crowd  all  alive  with  movement 
and  vociferation,  ever  inventing  some  new  way 
of  manifesting  its  approvals  and  disapprovals  and 
its  rough  sort  of  humour.  Each  candidate  came 
in  at  first  for  enthusiastic  cheers  from  one  of  the 
two  sections  of  the  crowd,  distinguished  by  yellow, 
or  "  buff,"  and  "  blue  "  rosettes  and  banners.  But 
alas  !  the  sweetness  of  the  "  hurrahs  "  would 
immediately  after  be  turned  into  bitterness,  as 
rude  exclamations,  insolent  questions,  roars  of 
horse-laughter,  and  even  more  offensive  tangible 
missiles  like  cabbage-stumps,  came  from  the  other 
section. 

An  election  took  place  in  the  year  in  which  I 
returned  home.  The  Liberal  candidates  were 
A.  W.  Kinglake  and  Colonel  Tynte,  of  Halswell 
Park,  our  picnic  resort.  My  father  was  a  warm 
supporter  of  "  Eothen,"  and  I  had  the  treat  of 
being  taken  to  hear  him  address  his  supporters. 
He  was  of  a  thickset  figure,  wore  his  iron-grey 
hair  short  and  erect,  and  had  an  eyeglass,  which 
he  was  wont  suddenly  to  drop.  His  voice  was 
weak  and  husky,  and  he  had  frequently  to  refresh 
his  throat  by  sucking  a  lemon.  Colonel  Tynte 
formed  a  curious  contrast  to  the  little  shy- looking 
traveller.  His  figure  was  tall,  and  impressively 
got  up  in  elegant  frock-coat  and  with  long  military 
moustache.  He  looked  an  ideal  candidate  for 
admiring  burgesses  with  children  to  be  placated. 
Both  Liberal  candidates  were  returned  at  this 
election,  and  Kinglake  remained  our  member  for 
about  nine  years.     But,  as  we  shall  see,  if  we  were 


PLYMOUTH   BRETHREN  57 

proud  of  him,  he  had  in  the  end  but  little  reason 
to  be  proud  of  his  electors.  The  Bridgwater  seat 
attracted  the  eye  of  more  than  one  literary  man, 
Walter  Bagehot,  whom  my  father  also  supported, 
standing  for  it,  unsuccessfully,  in  1865. 

During  this  period  we  extended  the  range  of 
our  acquaintance  with  other  families.  One  of 
these  belonged  to  the  Plymouth  Brethren.  It 
was  a  large  family  like  our  own.  The  boys 
were  growing  towards  manhood,  and  while  they 
respected  their  parents'  creed  and  would  put 
in  an  appearance  at  "meeting,"  they  were  glad 
of  an  opportunity  to  breathe  a  spiritual  atmo- 
sphere less  heavily  laden  with  "  texts "  from 
the  Bible.  The  father,  who  looked  the  very 
embodiment  of  seriousness,  had  hidden  reserves 
of  humour,  and  as  the  boys  grew  and  threw  off 
their  theological  swaddling-clothes  they  played 
upon  the  more  genial  side  of  their  parent,  educat- 
ing him  up  to  a  good-natured  acceptance  of  much 
hardy  jocosity.  The  mother  had  one  of  the  most 
unforgettable  of  those  faces  which  express  a  soul 
made  beautiful  by  memories  of  love.  Though  she 
wore  a  most  engaging  smile,  she  lacked  her  hus- 
band's quick  responsiveness  to  the  note  of  fun. 
So  the  boys  would  gently  tease  her,  inventing 
stories  of  her  waking  up  to  the  inner  significance 
of  a  joke  hours  after  its  perpetration,  and  some- 
times even  at  meeting.  Most  of  these  clever  and 
entertaining  youths  v\^ent  later  to  try  their  fortunes 
in  America,  from  which,  when  paying  visits  to 
the  old  country,  they  would  bring  a  touch  of  the 
racy  American  idiom,  and  something,  too,  of  the 


58  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

country's  larger  freedom  of  outlook.  We  all  bene- 
fited by  these  waftings  of  a  transatlantic  air 
into  our  closer  home  atmosphere.  Even  father's 
seriousness  fell  before  the  attacks  of  their  American 
humour.  I  remember  how  on  one  occasion,  v.hen 
one  of  the  visitors  v»^as  so  frivolous  as  to  speak 
of  two  places  of  worship  as  "  opposition  shops," 
my  father,  after  pretending  for  a  moment  to  be 
shocked,  had,  willy  nilly,  to  join  in  our  laughter. 

During  these  last  years  under  the  paternal  roof 
I  enjoyed,  of  course,  a  greater  freedom  of  excursion. 
I  took  to  horse  exercise,  and  explored  yet  more 
thoroughly  the  beautiful  surroundings  of  our  town. 
Now  it  was  a  ride  on  a  gloAving  autumnal  afternoon 
to  fill  my  pockets  with  the  brown  nuts  easily 
reachable  from  the  saddle  ;  now  it  vras  a  winter 
drive  to  Westonzoyland  and  a  day's  skating  on 
flooded  Sedgemoor,  v/here  we  could  fly  miles  and 
miles,  arrested  only  now  and  again  by  a  "  rhine," 
the  wa-ter  of  which  had  sunk  so  that  wc  had  steep 
slopes  of  ice  to  descend  and  climb.  At  this  time, 
too,  I  enjoyed  with  a  brother  my  first  walking 
tour.  We  chose  the  English  lakes,  and  approached 
them  in  an  unusual  way,  I  suspect,  by  taking  a 
cargo-boat  from  Liverpool  to  WTiitehaven.  We 
must  have  been  pretty  green,  for  we  climbed 
Helvellyn  without  a  guide,  and,  being  overtaken 
by  a  mist,  had  hard  work  to  find  our  vv^ay  down 
to  Patterdale. 

Thus  happily  I  crossed  the  boundary  of  teens 
and  twenties,  still  half  a  home-child,  but  taken 
with  new  and  mightier  impulses  towards  self- 
assertion.    Another   centrifugal   force   was   also    at 


LEAVING   HOME  69 

work.  I  had  accepted  business  from  no  conscious 
drawing  of  heart.  Now  the  old  thirst  for  know- 
ledge grew  better  defined  and  more  imperious. 
The  humanitarian  impulse  was  still  a  potent 
element  in  my  religious  activity.  The  two  motives 
combining  led  me  to  decide  to  enter  the  ministry. 
]My  father  met  my  proposal  with  his  accustomed 
breadth  of  view  and  generosity,  and  after  some 
delay  I  entered  my  name  as  a  student  in  Regent's 
Park  College.  I  had  more  than  exhausted  the 
educative  influence  of  my  Bridgwater  surround- 
ings. I  had  accomplished  but  a  sorry  amount  of 
systematic  reading,  and  had  received  but  little 
aid  from  the  stimulating  forces  of  personal 
contact  with  tutor  and  fellow- student.  Yet, 
when  looking  back  on  those  years,  I  have  never 
felt  the  sharper  pains  of  regret.  Perhaps  I  did 
grow  intellectually  more  than  I  knew  at  the  time, 
illustrating  in  a  humble  fashion  Goethe's  line  : 

Es  bildet  ein  Talent  sich  in  der  Stille. 

In  any  case  I  reaped  a  certain  profit  from  the 
delay  :  getting  more  firmly  grounded,  not  only  in 
the  lore  of  the  affections,  but  in  such  elements  of 
individuality  as  independence  of  view,  and  a  habit 
of  thinking  out  my  ovm  estimates  of  the  goodness 
and  badness  of  things. 

Since  so  much  of  life  looks  futile  to  a  searching 
retrospect,  one  may  perhaps  be  forgiven  for  in- 
dulging for  a  moment  in  that  most  palpable  of 
futilities — a  glance  at  the  "  might  have  beens." 
What  sort  of  a  youngling,  I  have  sometimes  asked 


60  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

myself,  should  I  have  become  by  the  twenties  if, 
instead  of  the  rough-and-tumble  and  the  big 
expansive  affections  of  our  large  family  life,  the 
fates  had  decreed  for  me  another  sort  of  environ- 
ment—say that  of  a  quieter  and  more  studious 
home  with  a  Swedenborgian  at  its  head,  such 
as  fell  to  my  friend  William  James,  or  of  one 
consisting  only  of  parents,  both  devoted  to  the 
spiritual  nurture  of  their  one  precious  child  ?  But 
on  the  heels  of  the  question  there  seems  to  come 
my  ever  prompt  Italian  monitor,  with  his  quick 
shrug  of  the  shoulders  and  his  effectually  dis- 
missive question,  "  Chi  lo  sa  ?  " 


CHAPTER    III 

STUDENT  YEARS:   LONDON 

Our  Baptist  College  in  Regent's  Park  had  a  most 
uncollegiate  appearance.  A  glance  at  its  large 
classical  portico  showed  one  that  it  had  been  the 
residence  of  a  wealthy  citizen.  It  was  one  of  those 
aggressive  erections  which,  by  a  piece  of  good 
luck  or  an  unchallenged  hardihood,  have  managed 
to  wedge  themselves  into  our  parks,  as  well  as 
into  Hampstead  Heath  and  other  common  lands. 
To  drive  past  the  porter's  lodge  up  to  the  im- 
posing portico  must,  one  supposes,  have  been 
to  many  a  Baptist  student  an  excitingly  new 
experience.  The  spacious  entrance  hall,  in  spite 
of  the  organ  which  figured  in  it,  looked  like 
anything  but  a  portion  of  a  Baptist  academy, 
and  the  magnificent  ballroom,  for  all  its  effort 
to  pass  itself  off  for  a  library,  wore  a  hopelessly 
worldly  expression. 

The  palatial  construction  offered  the  student 
one  of  two  kinds  of  "study" — a  share  in  one  of 
the  larger  rooms  in  the  central  part  of  the  build- 
ing or  a  small  room  at  one  end  all  to  himself. 
The  authorities  arranged  that  a  new-comer  should 
begin  with  the  modest  allotment  of  a  share ;  where- 

61 


62  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

fore  I  found  myself  with  two  fellow-students  in  a 
lofty  room  amply  lit  by  large  windows.  Anything 
less  cloistral  in  appearance  than  these  "  studies  " 
it  would  be  hard  to  imagine  ;  and  I  remember  that 
our  spacious  apartment  was  liable  to  interruption 
from  calls  at  all  sorts  of  hours  from  charmingly 
sociable  students  who  took  their  own  reading 
lightly,  and  assumed  that  we  shared  their  dila- 
tory ways.  We  suffered  these  idlers,  if  not  gladly, 
at  least  with  something  of  Christian  composure. 
Happily  for  me,  both  of  my  companions  were 
workers.  One  of  them,  William  Medley,  who  was 
older  than  I,  proved  himself  a  delightful  companion. 
With  a  shy,  deeply  rooted  piety,  and  a  quiet,  un- 
hurrying  pertinacity  in  work,  he  combined  a  most 
tenderly  whimsical  humour,  which  discharged  its 
harmless  darts  in  all  directions.  None,  not  even 
our  favourite  tutors  and  "  chums,"  were  spared  ; 
nor  would  any  of  them,  I  think,  have  cared  to 
escape  from  its  playful  touch.  My  other  companion 
was  a  young  lay  student,  Robert  Whitby,  on  whom 
Medley  had  cast  his  spell.  And  he  too  became 
a  lifelong  friend. 

Since  we  were  reading  for  the  Arts  degree  in 
the  University  of  London,  we  were  absolved  from 
much  of  the  theological  course.  The  Principal, 
Dr.  Angus,  drilled  us  in  his  "  Bible  Handbook,"  a 
volume  that,  I  fear,  we  were  apt  to  think  a  little 
too  "  handbooky."  At  his  lectures  we  sat  round 
a  table,  and,  after  a  short  prayer  had  been  offered, 
he  began  his  exposition,  while  we  proceeded  to 
take  notes.  He  allowed  us  to  put  questions,  and 
some  of  the  bolder   spirits  would   now   and   then 


DR.   ANGUS  68 

strain  this  allowance  by  trying  to  prolong  a  theo- 
logical discussion. 

Our  Principal  possessed  much  of  the  practi- 
cal "  canniness  "  commonly  associated  with  the 
northern  latitudes  from  which  he  came.  If  he 
lacked  something  of  the  divine  afflatus  which  draws 
about  a  teacher  devoted  followers,  he  was  an  ex- 
cellent instructor  in  moderate  views,  a,nd  I  dare 
say  he  was  just  the  right  tutor  for  one  who,  like 
myself,  had  allowed  feeling  and  impulse  to  grow 
a  little  too  luxuriantly,  till  it  needed  the  pruning- 
knife.  The  exegetical  expansion  of  a  handbook 
hardly  allowed  him  scope  for  the  more  arousing 
and  attaching  kind  of  appeal.  After  all,  a  learner 
in  most  cases  only  m^anages  to  glimpse  a  facet 
or  two  of  his  preceptor's  concrete  personality ; 
and  after  I  had  ceased  to  be  his  pupil,  I  dis- 
covered in  my  old  tutor  quite  unsuspected  depths 
of  kindly  feeling. 

Both  in  appearance  and  in  disposition  our 
classical  tutor,  Dr.  Benjamin  Davis,  formed  a 
striking  contrast  with  the  President.  His  tall, 
rather  unwieldy  frame,  which  seemed  to  lurch 
from  side  to  side  as  he  walked,  his  absent,  student 
eyes,  thatched  over  with  shaggy  brows,  his  gamut 
of  grunt-like  inter jectional  sounds  which  expressed 
various  shades  of  satisfaction  and  its  opposite  at 
our  attem.pts  to  answer  some  linguistic  poser — 
these  and  other  characteristics  somehow  drew  us. 
He  had,  moreover,  something  of  the  warmth  of 
the  Welsh  race,  and  a  genius  for  attaching  younger 
men.  Under  the  spell  of  his  lovable  personality 
I  worked  away,   not  only   at  Latin,   Greek,   and 


64  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

German,  for  which  I  had  some  hking,  but  at 
Hebrew,  which  rather  repelled  than  attracted  me. 
His  way  of  exercising  us  in  discovering  cognate 
words  in  different  languages  interested  me  greatly, 
and  started  a  habit  from  which  I  profited  later 
when  travelling  abroad. 

Our  corporate  life  had  hardly  more  of  an  ascetic 
flavour  than  our  palatial  building.  We  had  a 
sort  of  "Union" — in  the  University  sense.  There 
was  a  reading-room  in  which  we  could  see  news- 
papers and  reviews,  among  others  The  Fortnightly 
Review,  which  started  under  the  editorship  of 
G.  H.  Lewes  in  1865  on  what  were  then  con- 
sidered rather  free-thinking  lines.  A  discussion 
would  sometimes  arise  as  to  the  comparative 
values  of  this  and  that  paper.  We  took  The  Times, 
of  course ;  but  during  the  days  of  hot  dispute  over 
the  execution,  in  Jamaica,  of  the  negro  Gordon 
by  Governor  Eyre  (1866),  our  men,  who  were 
naturally  disposed  to  side  with  J.  S.  Mill  and  the 
minority  against  Eyre,  growing  restive  under  what 
they  regarded  as  the  one-sided  treatment  of  the 
question  by  The  Times,  desired  to  substitute  for 
it  the  Daily  News.  Unfortunately,  in  their  zealous 
haste  they  introduced  the  latter  newspaper  with- 
out the  formal  sanction  of  the  committee  which 
had  to  decide  upon  the  journals  admitted.  This 
high-handed  proceeding  was  strongly  condemned 
by  some  of  us,  including  (if  I  remember  aright) 
one  who  remained  my  friend  long  after  my  student 
days,  Harry  Foot.  We  malcontents  gave  effect 
to  our  protest  by  seceding  from  the  Union.  Since 
that  time  I  have  been  rather  fond  of  appearing  in 


COLLEGE   DEBATES  65 

minorities,  but,  so  far  as  I  can  recollect,  never 
again  appeared  in  a  minority  which  so  obviously 
represented  the  principle  of  law  and  orderly 
procedure. 

In  our  Union  we  not  only  read  papers,  but 
organized  ourselves  into  a  parliament.  Here  we 
held  many  a  debate,  which,  if  not  productive  of 
the  highest  quality  of  dialectic  art,  was  apt  to  be 
lively  and  entertaining.  Then  there  were  public 
debates  held  in  the  library,  to  which  members  of 
other  colleges  and  friends  were  invited.  I  re- 
member that  one  of  the  latter  had  for  its  theme 
a  subject  specially  appeahng  to  unsophisticated 
and  rather  priggish  youth.  It  ran,  I  think,  some- 
what as  follows  :  "Is  the  influence  of  the  periodical 
literature  of  the  day  a  good  or  an  evil  one  ?  "  We 
liked  to  get  a  good  figure-head  for  our  chairman, 
and  on  that  particular  occasion  we  had  secured 
Hepworth  Dixon,  who  strengthened  the  non-theo- 
logical element  by  bringing  with  him  Charles 
Reade.  The  latter,  when  called  upon  to  speak 
by  enthusiastic  tongues  and  hands,  made  awkward 
attempts  to  get  out  of  it.  But  as  the  clamour 
continued  he  suddenly  stood  up,  and  in  a  lame, 
apologetic  fashion  confessed  that  he  could  not 
imagine  what  our  strenuous  and  heated  discussion 
was  all  about.  In  pooh-poohing  our  attempts  to 
assay  the  value  of  journalism,  he  dropped  an 
expression  that  sounded  to  our  correct  ears 
shockingly  improper  in  a  Baptist  college.  For 
a  moment  we  felt  very  hot,  and  the  face  of 
our  good  Principal,  towards  which  we  had 
instinctively  turned,  was  all  aflame.     The  novelist 

6 


66  MY   LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

had  perhaps  this  much  excuse  for  his  impropriety, 
that  though  the  presence  of  ladies  should  have 
bidden  him  hold  back  the  imprecatory  word,  the 
worldly  magnificence  of  our  library  may  well  have 
led  him  to  forget  for  a  moment  that  he  was  ad- 
dressing theological  students.  We  were  by  no 
means  daunted  by  this  contretemps,  but  pushed 
boldly  on  in  search  of  men  of  letters  for  our  chair- 
man. I  remember  being  drafted  off  with  another 
to  visit  Arthur  Kinglake,  who,  after  receiving  us 
civilly  enough,  declined  to  undertake  the  duty. 
Is  it  possible  that  our  foolish  attempt  to  determine 
literary  values  had  reached  "  Eothen's  "  ears  ? 

We  belonged  to  the  age  of  "  muscular  Chris- 
tianity," and  expended  a  good  deal  of  our  energy 
in  the  cricket-field.  I  took  a  subordinate  part  in 
intercollegiate  matches  in  which  our  champions 
shone  forth.  One  of  these  was  T.  V.  Tymms,  a 
spare  man  but  a  deadly  bowler,  who,  with  Harry 
Foot,  became  my  chum  during  the  last  years  of 
my  residence.  Another  athlete  was  a  layman, 
Abel  Thomas,  afterwards  a  well-known  barrister 
on  the  South  Wales  Circuit.  He  was  a  congenial 
Welshman  for  whom  I  conceived  a  strong  liking. 
My  few  memories  of  him  shine  with  a  heroic  light. 
Shortly  after  I  had  "gone  down"  he  distinguished 
himself  by  saving  a  number  of  lives  when,  owing 
to  the  pressure  of  a  crowd  of  skaters,  the  ice  on 
the  Regent's  Park  lake  suddenly  collapsed. 

We  used  the  opportunities  which  London  offered 
us  of  hearing  renowned  preachers.  Sometimes 
one  of  these  would  visit  the  college  and  address 
us.     I  rather  think  that  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was 


PULPIT   ORATORS  67 

among  these  visitors.  At  any  rate,  I  heard  him 
and  others  champion  the  cause  of  the  North  during 
the  American  War  when  The  Times  and  a  large 
part  of  Enghsh  society  were  sympathizing  with 
the  South. 

We  used  to  wander  far  in  our  search  for  a 
pulpit  orator  on  a  Sunday  morning — walking  there 
and  back.  We  began  by  selecting  the  more 
"  spiritual  "  or  "  edifying  "  preachers,  but,  as 
minds  broadened,  we  included  in  these  Sabbatarian 
samplings  men  of  doubtful  orthodoxy  like  Edward 
"White  or,  worse  still,  T.  T.  Lynch,  both  of  whom 
held  forth  in  Camden  Town.  Of  these  more  or 
less  heretical  preachers  Lynch  has  left  on  my 
mind  by  far  the  most  vivid  impression.  He  had 
been  compelled  to  leave  one  church  by  charges  of 
theological  heterodoxy  brought  against  the  ideas 
in  his  book  of  hymns,  "  The  Rivulet."  He  was 
now  preaching,  if  I  remember  aright,  in  a  new 
iron  church  in  the  Hampstead  Road.  His  congre- 
gation made  up  for  its  smallness  by  the  remarkable 
diversity  of  its  individual  members,  among  whom, 
I  was  told,  was  Henry  Vincent,  the  Socialist. 
His  sermon  was  a  piece  of  subtly  woven  thought, 
abounding  in  ingenious  conceits,  and  warmed 
through  and  through  with  the  glov/  of  a  genuinely 
poetic  imagination.  The  manner  of  the  preacher's 
delivery  had  a  certain  wcirdness.  He  would 
almost  hurt  you  as  he  spasmodically  gripped  a 
vertical  rod  and,  using  this  as  a  pivot,  swung 
himself  about  it.  These  bodily  contortions  were 
accompanied  by  no  less  awry  movements  of  the 
facial    muscles.     Yet    if    all    this    eccentricity    of 


68  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

manner  was  far  enough  away  from  the  looked-for 
graces  and  charms  of  oratory,  it  supphed  a  forcible 
symbohc  revelation  of  what  was  going  forward 
in  the  preacher's  soul — the  fierce  pain-whipped 
strugglings  of  thought  and  feeling  towards  a  per- 
fectly clear,  harmonious  form  of  utterance.  Little 
of  the  substance  of  his  discourses  abides  with 
me  ;  yet  my  friend  Whitby  can  recall  one  passage 
which  won  our  special  admiration.  Preaching  on 
the  text  "  By  might  shall  no  man  prevail,"  he 
boldly  enlarged  its  scope,  following  up  the  words 
"  no  man  "  with  "  no,  not  even  an  angel — no, 
not  even  God.^^ 

These  Sunday  wanderings  gave  us  a  certain 
mappish  acquaintance  with  London  on  its  sleepy 
day.  To  any  full  inspection  of  the  wonders  of 
the  metropolis  •  I  cannot  testify.  Want  of  time, 
aided  perhaps  by  lack  of  the  keener  sort  of  interest, 
restricted  our  peregrinations.  So  it  befell  that  I 
lapsed  into  the  habit  of  viewing  the  great  city  as 
my  big  workshop  from  which  I  flew  whenever  I 
wanted  a  holiday — a  habit  which  clung  to  me 
through  all  the  years  of  my  residence  in1:he  capital. 

Our  circle  of  recreative  amusements  was,  of 
course,  restricted.  We  had  our  private  opinion 
that  visits  to  the  theatre  might  benefit  young  men 
preparing  to  be  public  speakers,  but  we  knew 
that  the  churches  still  fought  shy  of  dramatic 
spectacles.  Music,  on  the  other  hand,  was  open 
to  us,  and  I  was  able  to  avail  myself  of  the  Monday 
Popular  Concerts  (or  "  Pops  ")  at  St.  James's  Hall. 
These  had  been  started  four  years  before  I  went 
to  Regent's  Park,  and  during  my  residence  there 


ST.   JAMES'S   HALL   CONCERTS  69 

and  for  many  years  later — after  they  had  been 
supplemented  by  the  Saturday  performances — I 
found  in  them  a  chief  delight  as  well  as  an  excellent 
schooling  for  my  ear.  My  second  sister  married, 
and  settled  in  London  whilst  I  was  at  college  ; 
and  after  this  she  would  often  accompany  me  to 
St.  James's  Hall.  In  this  way  a  good  deal  of 
music,  German  and  other,  to  the  beauties  of  which 
these  concerts  first  opened  my  ears,  came  to  be 
associated  in  the  closest  possible  way  with  hours 
of  a  rapturous  sympathy  between  brother  and 
sister.  Other  associations  came  later  on  to  be 
formed  with  these  musical  treats — the  sight  of  the 
blind  youths  from  the  St.  John's  Wood  School 
when  the  joy  of  sound  lit  up  their  dull,  vacant 
orbits,  and  of  more  than  one  distinguished  writer 
and  artist,  for  whose  face  I  used  to  look  out  as 
for  a  sort  of  resonator  which  would  help  me  to 
bear  a  weight  of  enjoyment  too  great  to  be  carried 
alone. 

WTien,  years  later,  I  heard  of  the  demolition  of 
St.  James's  Hall  in  order  to  make  room  for  a  huge 
hotel,  I  seemed  for  a  long  minute  to  live  over  again 
in  epitome  those  delightful  concerts.  I  saw  again 
Joachim  and  his  quartet  shuffling  up  the  steps 
into  the  visibility  of  the  orchestra,  and  I  tasted 
again  the  delicious  thrill  of  those  first  ahnungsvoll 
tryings  of  the  instruments.  Other  figures,  too — 
grave  ministers  of  the  lyric  muse — appeared  to  my 
fancy,  such  as  the  Abbe  Liszt,  Madame  Schumann, 
Piatti,  along  with  less  dignified  forms,  such  as 
Rubinstein  hurling  his  fingers  down  on  the  keys 
and  every  now  and  then  managing  between  the 


70  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

thumps  to  throw  back  the  big  shock  of  hair  from 
his  face.  As  for  the  music,  the  Hall  became  for 
me  at  the  hour  of  its  fall  a  large  sea-shell  heamted 
by  many  interlacings  of  m.agical  tones. 

The  most  memorable  of  the  public  spectacles 
which  I  enjoyed  during  those  college  days  was 
the  entry  of  Garibaldi  into  London  (in  April  1865). 
A  big  crowd  was  expected,  so  we  started  early, 
taking  up  our  position  a  little  below  the  Hay- 
market  about  one  hour  before  the  hero  was 
expected  to  arrive.  It  was  my  first  experience  of 
a  London  crowd,  and  I  gave  myself  up  to  conning 
its  ways — its  rougher  manners  as  well  as  its  good 
humour.  I  was  amused  at  the  efforts  of  the  shorter 
folk  to  climb  above  the  heads  of  the  grown-ups. 
One  or  tvv^o  urchins,  I  remember,  were  bold  enough 
to  perch  themselves  on  the  pedestals  of  princely 
personages.  The  promised  hour  of  two  o'clock 
passed  without  a  sign  of  our  visitor.  But  the 
London  crowd,  I  found,  is  used  to  delays,  and  it 
continued  to  indulge  in  its  humorous  outbursts. 
It  was  only  when  four  o'clock  left  us  still  waiting 
for  our  General  that  signs  of  impatience  grew 
ugly  and  threatening. ^ 

At  last  our  weary  hours  of  standing  and  peering 
were  rewarded.  The  flutter  of  a  banner  Vv^as  dis- 
cerned far  dov/n  towards  Charing  Cross,  after 
which  came  the  confused  murmur  of  many  voices. 
The  crowd,  slightly  disorganized  by  the  long 
delay,  was  forced  back  towards  the  pavements, 
and  room  made  for  a  procession  of  temperance  and 

I  On    the    cause    of    the    delay    see    G.   M.    Trevelyan's 
'  Garibaldi  and  the  Making  of  Italy,"   pp.  289  ff. 


GARIBALDI  71 

other  societies  bearing  their  banners  and  music. 
After  this  came  one  more  disappointment  as  the 
thread  of  the  procession  seemed  suddenly  to  snap. 
Thus  it  happened  that  it  was  nearly  seven  o'clock 
before  the  longed-for  figure  greeted  our  eyes.  A 
furniture  van  had  been  stopped  by  the  sudden 
thickening  of  the  crowd,  and  some  of  us  managed 
to  get  a  footing  on  its  platform.  The  mounted 
police  had  now  enough  to  do  to  clear  a  way  for  the 
carriages.  Our  easily  recognizable  hero  appeared 
in  an  open  carriage  drawn  by  four  horses.  He  was 
standing,  supported  by  his  two  sons.  Mounted 
police  rode  on  each  side  of  the  carriage.  There 
was  no  element  of  official  grandeur  in  the  spectacle, 
for  the  four  horses  hardly  reached  the  level  of 
scenic  display.  It  was  a  purely  popular  function, 
the  visit  of  a  private  citizen  to  an  admiring  people. 
So  we  thought  when  we  concentrated  attention 
upon  the  hero,  wearing,  one  might  say,  his  working 
clothes,  the  grey  shirt  and  trousers,  the  bright  red 
tunic  thrown  over  the  shoulders,  and  the  low  felt 
hat.  His  manner  of  acknowledging  the  cheers 
of  the  crowd  by  a  gentle  waving  of  the  hand  was, 
too,  simplicity  itself.  Pomp  and  circumstance 
could  have  added  nothing  to  a  face  in  which,  as 
Francis  Galton  has  it,  simplicity,  goodness,  and 
nobility  were  impressed  on  every  lineament.  It  was 
the  masterful  fascination  of  a  noble  personality  which 
kept  our  tired  bodies  straining  to  look,  and  still  to 
look,  as  long  as  there  was  anything  left  to  see. 

The  course  of  University  studies  grew  more 
interesting  after  the  dry  matriculation  work  of 
the  first  year.     By  the  beginning  of  my  third  I 


72  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

had  so  far  come  under  the  spell  of  the  classics,  more 
particularly  of  Greek  poetry  and  philosophy,  as 
to  begin  reading  for  Honours.  But  philosophy 
put  in  the  stronger  claim,  and  as  the  year  ad- 
vanced I  decided  to  try  my  chance  of  Honours  in 
this  branch.  The  course  of  philosophic  reading, 
as  understood  at  this  time  by  our  University 
authorities  to  be  desirable,  was  not  perhaps  very 
soul-satisfying.  Since  my  time  the  reading  has 
been  enlarged  and  enriched,  more  especially  by 
the  inclusion  of  a  wider  study  of  the  history  of 
philosophy.  As  it  was,  I  had  to  find  my  chief 
nutriment  in  the  writings  of  J.  S.  Mill,  Herbert 
Spencer,  and  Alexander  Bain.  This  was,  no  doubt, 
a  one-sided  representation  of  philosophy  even  as 
regards  the  less  controversial  branches  of  psy- 
chology and  logic.  Yet  it  should  be  remembered 
that  the  one-sidedness  of  the  London  curriculum 
was  intended  to  balance  another  and  opposite 
one-sidedness  of  representation  in  more  than  one 
of  the  older  Universities.  In  any  case,  as  even 
Oxford  seems  to  have  recognized,  the  predominant 
empirical  philosophy  of  the  hour  supplied  the 
most  convenient,  if  not  also  the  most"'  natural, 
starting-point  for  philosophic  study.  I,  at  least, 
on  traversing  my  student  days,  feel  that  much 
of  any  love  of  clear  thinking  which  I  possess  is  due 
to  the  characteristically  British  manner  of  philo- 
sophizing, which  Mill  and  the  others  were  further 
developing.  To  read  Mill  and  Sir  W.  Hamilton 
concurrently,  and  with  some  critical  comparison, 
was  no  bad  exercise  in  distinguishing  between  a 
more  exact  kind  of  logical  thinking  and  a  looser 


JOHN   STUART  MILL  73 

and    more    showy    manner    of    presenting    things 
philosophical. 

For  all  his  seemingly  cold  self-restraint,  Mill 
appealed  to  the  humaner  side  of  me  as  neither 
Spencer  nor  Bain  appealed.  More  than  one 
student  in  our  Baptist  College  had  something  like 
a  pupil's  combined  reverence  and  fondness  for 
him.  It  was  in  my  third  year,  when  philosophy 
became  a  leading  subject  of  study,  that  Mill  first 
stood  as  Liberal  candidate  for  Westminster  (1865). 
Accompanied  by  a  fellow-student,  I  went  down 
to  hear  him  speak  just  before  the  election.  The 
other  political  party,  with  the  customary  eager- 
ness to  score  off  opponents,  had  been  plastering 
the  street  walls  of  Westminster  with  alarming- 
looking  quotations  from  Mill's  writings.  And 
the  evening  on  which  we  heard  him  he  was 
pretty  hotly  plied  with  questions.  He  quietly  but 
firmly  refused  to  have  anything  to  say  about 
his  religious  opinions,  herein  setting  an  example 
not  always  rigidly  followed  by  later  candidates 
suspected  of  heterodoxy.  But  on  other  matters 
he  was  frank  enough.  I  remember  to-day  what 
a  thrill  of  fearful  expectation — instantly  displaced 
by  a  feeling  of  joyous  relief— shot  through  me  as 
I  heard  a  man  in  the  hall  ask  Mill  whether  he 
had  actually  used  certain  words  by  no  means 
flattering  to  the  working  classes  and  Mill  at  once 
reply  in  a  quiet,  almost  an  indifferent,  manner 
that  he  had  used  the  words  quoted  ;  which  plucky 
answer    was    instantly   followed    by   loud    cheers. ^ 

I  Mill    himself   refers   to   this   incident    of   his   canvassing 
in  his  "  Autobiography,"  pp.  283-4. 


74  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

The  scene  burnt  itself  into  my  memory  :  the 
sunken  face,  the  large,  calm  brow,  and  the  thin 
voice  of  the  thinker,  against  the  robust  heads 
and  commanding  voices  of  his  interrogators.  The 
Garibaldi  procession  had  shown  me  the  great 
simplicity  of  the  soldier ;  the  meeting  in  the 
Westminster  Hall  revealed  to  me  another  sim- 
plicity no  less  great,  that  of  the  thinker  schooled 
by  long  practice  to  so  scrupulous  a  care  in  utter- 
ance as  to  have  forgotten  the  very  possibility  of 
such  a  thing  as  prevarication. 

In  recalling  Mill,  I  am  apt  to  experience  regrets 
which  may  well  sound  sentimental  or  worse.  One 
of  them  has  to  do  with  his  speech  in  the  House 
of  Commons  against  the  proposed  abolition  of 
capital  punishment  (April  21,  1868).  Even  when 
face  to  face  with  the  easygoing,  matter-of-fact 
country  squires  and  others  who  lialf  a  century 
ago  made  up  the  bulk  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
he  was  not  willing  to  relax  his  hold  on  first  prin- 
ciples ;  and  so  the  unaccustomed  parliamentary 
ears  had  to  do  their  best  to  follow  him,  as  with 
masterly  insight  and  precision  of  language  he  un- 
folded his  reasons  for  opposing  the  amendment 
in  favour  of  the  abolition.  Among  other  points, 
he  urged  that  the  punishment  of  death  is,  beyond 
comparison,  "  the  least  cruel  mode  "  in  which  it 
is  possible  adequately  to  deter  from  certain  crimes. 
He  laid  stress  upon  the  function  of  an  element  of 
the  unknown  in  quickening  the  imagination,  and 
brought  out  the  desirability  of  making  punish- 
ments in  reality  less  rigorous,  rather  than  more 
rigorous,   than   they   seem.     He   cast   a   historical 


LEAVING  COLLEGE  75 

glance  on  the  subject,  contrasting  the  ancients' 
too  Httle  care  for  death  with  our  modern  too 
great  care.  He  put  the  question,  "  Is  death,  then, 
the  greatest  of  all  earthly  ills  ?  "  The  speech 
must  have  fallen  with  more  of  a  shock  upon  its 
hearers  from  the  circumstance  that  only  two 
years  before  he  had  led  the  "  humanitarians  " 
against  Governor  Eyre.  I  remember  still  the 
vivid  impression  v/hich  the  reading  of  the  speech 
made  upon  my  mind.  I  have  often  regretted 
that  I  did  not  hear  it,  and  in  recent  years  I  have 
caught  myself  indulging  in  the  whimsical  wish 
that  one  of  our  journalistic  photographers — who 
seem  to  some  of  us  often  to  waste  their  art  upon 
such  poor  subjects  as  grinning  brides  and  bride- 
grooms— could  have  taken  a  fihri  into  the  House 
of  Commons  on  the  day  of  that  speech,  and 
added  to  our  permanent  possessions  by  fixing 
the  changes  of  expression  in  Mill's  audience 
as  he  brouufht  down  the  light  of  the  eternal 
ideas  to  illumine  the  sordid-looking  problem  of 
the  hangman. 

With  the  passing  of  the  final  examination  for 
the  B.A.  degree  in  October  (1866)  my  college 
career  ended.  Three  years  of  strenuous  reading 
for  examinations  had  wrought  notable  changes 
in  me.  Spiritually,  I  felt  arid  and  exhausted  as 
by  an  air-pump.  I  had  acquired  the  practice  of 
putting  questions  to  myself,  and  I  knew  it  was 
impossible  for  me  to  fall  back  into  the  passive 
acquiescent  attitude  of  my  old  religious  days.  I 
went  to  Liverpool  and  talked  with  Harry  Foot, 
who  had  been  my  closest  confidant  during  these 


76  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

three  years  of  intellectual  and  moral  fermentation 
and  regeneration. 

The  difficulty  of  the  problem,  how  to  return  to 
the  business  of  preaching,  was  shelved  for  a  time 
by  the  proposal  that  William  Medley  and  I  should 
go  to  Germany  for  the  next  year  or  two  to  con- 
tinue our  philosophical  studies  in  preparation  for 
the  M.A.  degree.  Gottingen  was  fixed  upon, 
primarily  (I  think)  as  affording  opportunity  of 
prolonging  our  study  of  Hebrew  under  the 
famous  Ewald.  I  feel  pretty  sure  that  it  was 
our  tutor,  Dr.  Benjamin  Davis,  who  had  most  to 
do  with  the  formation  of  this  plan.  He  loved 
Germany,  and  knew  Ewald.  To  his  counsel  our 
affection  gave  an  unhesitating  assent.  The  Ger- 
many that  his  kindly  heart  thought  of  for  us  was 
his  own  beloved  home  of  linguistic  scholarship. 
His  simple  undisturbed  religious  belief  rendered 
him  incapable  of  a  thought  of  speculative  danger 
in  my  case.  Thus  it  happened,  not  without 
some  appearance  of  the  irony  of  things,  that 
at  this  critical  moment  in  my  development  the 
loosening  of  old  attachments  was  to  be  carried 
to  a  further  stage  by  the  insidious  influence  of 
a  complete  and  prolonged  withdrawal  from  the 
sanctities  of  home,  in  a  remote  land,  amid  new 
currents  of  life,  culture,  and  thought.  Thus  might 
I  have  conceived  of  the  ordeal  had  the  proposal 
been  submitted  to  me  a  year  or  two  earlier,  for- 
getting in  a  moment  of  sentimental  regret  what 
my  poet  had  taught  me  concerning  the  value  of 
the  "  dead  selves  "  on  which  stepwise  we  climb 
to  higher  things. 


CHAPTER  IV 

STUDENT   YEARS:  GOTTINGEN   IN  THE   SIXTIES 

I  SET  out  for  Germany  with  my  college  friend, 
William  Medley,  on  January  11,  1867.  In  my 
case  the  strain  of  the  three  years'  reading  for  a 
degree  and  the  shaking  of  the  supports  of  early 
beliefs  had  been  followed  by  a  depressing  reaction, 
and  the  sense  of  drifting  from  ancient  moorings 
was  deepened  as  for  the  first  time  I  saw  the  English 
coast  disappear  behind  me.  But  the  sight  of  a 
new  world  at  Calais  roused  me  to  a  pleasurable 
curiosity.  The  strange  appearance  of  the  boats, 
carts,  and  houses,  of  the  men's  tilted  caps  and 
loose  tapering  trousers,  and  of  the  women's  short 
petticoats  and  white  caps,  brought  a  first  thrilling 
sense  of  being  abroad.  The  fa9ades  of  the  streets 
and  squares  in  Brussels  under  a  frosty,  starlit  sky 
transformed  this  first  half  shock-like  sensation 
into  one  of  pure  delight.  At  Cologne  we  encoun- 
tered one  of  the  impressive  contrasts  in  German 
life,  the  tight  grasp  of  Prussian  officialism  and  the 
laxity  of  the  Continental  Sunday.  My  love  of 
music  saved  me  from  any  unpleasant  shock  of 
Puritan  prejudice  on  hearing  the  band  play  in 
the  pretty  gardens  of  the  Flora  and  again,  later, 

77 


78  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

on  learning  that  our  hotel  was  to  be  made  gay 
by  an  evening  concert.  The  landscape  that  lay 
about  us  on  the  way  to  Gottingen — rounded, 
companionable-looking  hills  clad  in  fir-wood,  look- 
ing down  on  snowy  valleys  where  high-roofed 
houses  huddled  together  for  warmth — drew  us 
yet  closer  to  the  land  which  our  favourite  German 
poets  had  already  half  taught  us  to  love. 

Looking  from  our  hotel  window  the  morning 
after  our  arrival  in  Gottingen,  we  seem  to  be  in 
a  Russian  town.  The  snowstorm  has  not  quite 
hushed  the  streets,  for  the  clang  of  the  sleigh-bells 
and  the  fierce  crack  of  the  drivers'  v/hips  keep 
the  place  pretty  lively.  Everybody  is  thickly 
wrapped  up,  the  men  in  long  cloaks  with  deep  fur 
capes  and  wristbands,  the  girls  in  thick  woollen 
hoods  and  fur  tippets.  Children  are  being  pushed 
to  school  in  rough  wooden  sleighs. 

Somebody  had  told  us  of  the  principal  peda- 
gogue of  the  place,  a  certain  Dr.  Ptiorgenstern, 
who,  among  many  accomplishments,  had  a  fluent 
command  of  English,  while  his  name  held  a 
promise  of  a  welcome  illumination  over  the  first 
difficult  passage  of  our  pilgrimage  in  Germany. 
After  fumbling  over  the  intricate  system  of 
doors  and  bell-handles  in  a  German  house,  we 
reached  the  doctor's  flat.  Lie  received  us  civilly, 
bidding  us  "  Take  place  !  "  as  if  he  were  a  sort 
of  creator  and  we  as  yet  only  unrealized  ideas. 
In  spite  of  some  pedantic  ways,  he  was  a  very 
nice  little  man,  and  did  his  best  for  us.  In  his 
room  we  had  our  first  experience  of  the  visitor  in 
a  German  homCt   sitting  confined  behind  a  table 


GOTTIXGr.X. 


To  face  i>.  87- 


THE  GERMAN  TONGUE  79 

on  a  stiff  sofa,  while  our  host  added  another  wall 
to  our  prison  by  sitting  and  facing  us  on  the  other 
side  of  the  table.  I  feel  pretty  sure  that,  though 
we  could  read  German  with  ease,  our  conversa- 
tional experiments  were  hardly  better  than  those 
of  our  worthy  host ;  though,  whether  from  polite- 
ness or  from  a  pedagogic  seriousness  which  had 
no  place  for  humour,  he  gave  no  sign  of  being 
amused  at  our  slips. 

For  me  and  my  friend,  these  first  crude  stages 
of  linguistic  performance  were  charged  with  merri- 
ment. So  greatly  did  I  enjoy  the  fun  of  it  that 
later  on,  after  attaining  some  facility  in  speaking 
German,  I  knowingly  continued  to  perpetrate 
astounding  solecisms.  This  impish  behaviour  on 
my  part  had  for  its  object  the  entertainment  of 
some  young  girls  whom  we  used  to  meet  when 
spending  an  evening  at  their  'pension ;  and  it 
was  amply  rewarded  by  shouts  of  laughter.  As 
to  the  early  imintentional  slips,  I  am  pretty  sure 
that  they  were  bad  enough.  I  had  been  told 
that  the  way  to  gain  proficiency  in  the  language 
was  to  talk  and  talk,  not  minding  the  mistakes 
which  miight  occur  and  would  pretty  certainly 
be  corrected  by  the  good  Germans,  who  seem 
to  love  nothing  better  than  to  set  us  ignorant 
foreigners  right.  I  followed  out  this  plan  with 
good  results,  and  stumbled  along  with  something 
of  the  pluck  of  a  horse  fording  a  swollen  river. 

One  of  my  instructors  in  German  v/as  a  lady 
at  whose  pension  we  afterwards  lived.  She  would 
think  to  encourage  us  on  our  thorny  linguistic 
road  by   relating  slips  of  a  greater  gravity  than 


80  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

ours,  made  by  other  English  beginners.  Among 
other  "  howlers  "  was  the  answer  made  by  an 
English  boy  staying  at  her  pension  to  an  inquiry 
as  to  what  he  had  eaten  when  dining  out.  Wish- 
ing to  say  "  roast  beef  and  potato  salad,"  -he 
managed  by  something  like  a  stroke  of  genius  to 
say  "  roast  child  and  slipper  salad,"  substituting 
Kinder  for  Kinder  and  Pantoffel  for  Kartoffel. 
But  for  the  perfect  candour  of  my  good  land- 
lady's eyes,  I  should  have  suspected  the  authen- 
ticity of  this  story.  It  is  more  likely  that  the 
young  Briton  invented  the  clumsy  confusion  for 
her  benefit.  It  was  a  comfort  to  learn  years 
afterwards  that  Germans  too,  when  first  trying 
their  hand  at  English,  are  apt  to  exhibit  some- 
thing of  the  same  frailty.  Perhaps  one  of  the 
most  amusing  examples  is  the  attempt  of  Richter, 
the  celebrated  musical  conductor,  to  describe  his 
difficulties  when  crossing  the  Channel.  Wishing  to 
say,  "  Wlien  I  feel  ill  I  must  lie  down,  but  when 
I  lie  down  I  get  giddy,"  he  said  something  like 
this  :  "  When  I  am  bad  I  lie,  and  when  I  lie  I 
swindle  "  (es  schwindelt  mir). 

Already  knowing  German  grammatically,  but 
quite  uninitiated  in  the  pronunciation  of  it,  I 
secured  the  services  of  a  student  to  whom  I 
read  aloud.  He  was  a  well-marked  type,  with 
a  parchmenty  skin  and  protuberant  eyes,  and 
kept  vigorously  sucking  a  long  pipe,  which  he 
could  go  on  sucking  when  moving  about  by 
clutching  the  mouthpiece  with  his  teeth.  He 
was  an  excellent  stickler  for  the  nuances  of 
pronunciation  ;    yet  years  later  I  had  in  Florence 


OLD   GOTTINGEN  81 

a  little  girl  of  eight  as  my  maestra  in  Italian, 
who  (I  am  bound  to  own)  was  quite  as  good  as, 
if  she  did  not  surpass,  the  German  student. 

Our  first  peregrinations  about  the  old  town 
were  in  seareh  of  lodgings  :  piloted  by  the  good 
Dr.  Morgenstern,  whose  idea  of  a  student's 
"  diggings  "  was  an  exceedingly  modest  one.  Our 
explorations  made  us  acquainted  with  certain 
curiosities  of  architecture  in  Gottingen  houses  as 
well  as  with  certain  oddities  in  their  inmates. 
The  atmosphere  of  som.e  of  the  small  upper  rooms 
which  we  visited  was  not  exactly  inviting.  The 
German  mode  of  heating  a  room  by  the  consump- 
tion of  a  stove-full  of  wood  in  the  morning, 
and  keeping  closed  double  windows  for  the  rest 
of  the  day,  results  in  an  indescribable  variety  of 
stuffiness.  So  offensive  to  nostril  and  throat  was 
this  foul  composition  that,  though  neither  of  us 
was  a  smoker,  we  welcomed  the  after-fumes  of 
German  tobacco  as  introducing  a  fresher  and 
more  wholesome  element  into  the  exhausted  air. 

We  succeeded  at  last,  with  as  little  injury  to 
his  feelings  as  possible,  in  dismissing  our  well- 
intentioned  guide,  and  set  about  a  search  for 
more  habitable  quarters.  This  took  us  into  some 
of  the  queerest  parts  of  the  old  town.  Its  primi- 
tiveness  was  written  on  its  face,  on  the  gutter 
rillets  at  the  sides  of  the  street  which  bore  away 
their  malodorous  burden  in  the  most  leisurely 
fashion,  in  the  rough-hewn  many-cornered  paving 
stones  that  made  much  walking  a,  penance,  and 
in  the  lamps  suspended  in  the  middle  of  the 
streets  high  above  our  heads.     We  soon  began  to 

7 


82  MY  LIFE  AND  FRIENDS 

get  used  to  the  little  drawbacks  of  the  streets, 
and  learned  to  like  their  expressive  physiognomy. 
The  old  houses,  which  were  elaborately  timbered 
and  topped  with  high-peaked  red  roofs,  had  a 
way  of  insinuating  themselves  into  our  affection. 
Now  and  then  the  vista  of  a  street  would  be 
pleasantly  broken  by  a  high  church  tower  ending 
in  a  short  spire  or  in  a  dome.  Of  the  shops,  the 
most  seductive  to  our  eyes  were  the  new  '^nd 
antiquarian  bookshops.  We  soon  grew  fond  of 
hanging  about  these,  going  so  far  as  to  peep  into 
the  latest  unbound  and  uncut  publications,  sniff- 
ing their  agreeable  press  aroma.  The  traffic  of 
the  streets,  from  the  yellow  Posiwagen  and 
the  long  cradle-like  wagons  with  horses  loosely 
attached,  down  to  the  little  bakers'  carts  drawn 
by  dogs  that  seemed  to  pant  as  with  impatient 
zeal,  had  many  an  attraction  for  our  unaccus- 
tomed eyes.  We  found  the  centre  of  outdoor 
life,  the  market-place,  especially  engaging ;  and 
our  lingerings  there  were  prolonged  after  we  had 
made  acquaintance  with  the  old  apple-woman, 
nicknamed  Alte  Tante,  of  whom  tradition  whis- 
pered that  she  had  been  Heine's  sweetheart  when 
he  was  a  student  in  Gottingen — dividing  his  time 
rather  partially  between  dry  juristic  studies, 
amusing  inspection  of  the  foibles  of  dreamy  pro- 
fessors, and  criticism  of  the  dimensions  of  the 
Gottingen  dames'  feet.  She  was  now  a  handsome 
old  lady,  who  looked  a  little  witch-like  as  she  sat 
muffled  up  to  the  chin  and  plied  her  wily  mercantile 
arts  on  a  new  generation  of  ingenuous  youth. 

We    duly    visited    the    fine    modern    University 


THE   STUDENTS  83 

building,  the  "  Augusta,"  where  we  went  through 
the  not  very  tedious  formaUty  of  paying  our 
fees  and  obtaining  our  certificates  of  matriculation 
(Matrikelschein).  No  doubt  we  had  an  amused 
satisfaction  in  bearing  away  our  University  tes- 
tamur ;  but  I  think  we  came  nearest  to  a  feeling 
of  proud  elation  when  we  found  ourselves  ad- 
dressed by  the  Pedell  (beadle)  or  by  a  tradesman 
as  "  Herr  Studiosus."  The  ponderous  formalities 
of  the  German  language  have  a  Vv^ay  of  giving  a 
touch  of  glory  to  us  poor  mortals. 

Gottingen  was  in  those  days  a  "  little  nest  " 
of  a  place,  in  the  life  of  which  the  University 
bulked  large.  Students  were  to  be  seen  in  plenty, 
more  especially  in  the  vicinity  of  the  aula. 
Although  they  carried  their  notes  of  lectures  under 
their  arms,  they  appeared  as  little  oppressed  by 
any  weight  of  learning  as  our  Oxford  under- 
graduates appear  to  be  when,  issuing  from  the 
lecture-room,  they  tuck  their  skimpy  gowns  under 
their  arms.  Unlike  the  latter,  however,  the  Got- 
tingen students  do  not  hurry  away  after  a  lecture, 
but  loiter  and  chat  with  a  German's  love  of  leisure 
and  Gemiithlichkeit.  Differences  of  rank  among 
the  students  at  once  disclose  themselves.  The 
coloured  caps  mark  off  the  several  corps  from 
the  plain  students  whom  they  dub  "  Bar- 
barians "  (Wilde).  The  latter  often  look  a  little 
shabby  in  dress  and  pasty  in  face,  whereas  the 
corps  students  seem  better  off  in  both  senses, 
and  frequently  add  to  their  flourishing  aspect  by 
some  decorative  adjunct,  such  as  a  cane  or  a  big 
Danish  hoimd. 


84  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

A  favourite  promenade  of  the  students  was  the 
long  Wender  Strasse.  Here  they  loved  to  crowd 
and  talk  and,  aided  by  the  barking  of  their  dogs, 
would  often  make  a  pretty  clatter.  The  best 
walk  in  Gottingen  was  on  the  broad  ramparts 
or  vallum  encircling  the  old  town.  Here  in  the 
afternoon,  under  an  avenue  of  limes,  many 
citizens  of  both  "  town  "  and  "  gown  "  did  their 
carefully  regulated  amoimt  of  slow  post-prandial 
pacing.  The  afternoon  procession  included  not 
only  professors  and  other  elderly  persons,  but 
young  people  of  both  sexes,  who,  however, 
always  kept  severely  apart  one  from  the  other. 
We  liked  to  come  here  at  the  frequented  hour 
and  watch  the  slowly  advancing  procession,  each 
figure  in  its  turn  emerging  from  a  speck-like 
insignificance  into  the  full  altitude  of  erect  man- 
hood. Of  all  these  perambulating  figures  the  most 
noteworthy  type  was  the  learned  professor,  moving 
with  slow  step  and  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground,  and 
apparently  lost  in  thought.  By  observing  these 
quiet  dream-like  figures  we  began  to  understand 
some  of  the  students'  jocose  stories  of  the  absent- 
mindedness  of  their  professors  ;  as  when  it  was 
said  that  a  dear  old  Gelehrter,  on  walking  out  one 
moonlight  evening,  took  all  the  tree  shadows 
thrown  across  the  road  to  be  ditches,  every  one 
of  which  he  proceeded  with  great  circumspection 
to  jump  over. 

From  the  quiet  aspect  of  these  professors,  seem- 
ingly preoccupied  in  their  respective  lines  of 
speculation,  you  would  scarcely  guess  that  the 
University  has  been,  and  still  is,  agitated  by  last 


THE   PROMENADE  85 

year's  annexation  of  Hanover  to  the  now  master- 
ful kingdom  of  Prussia.  But  stay  a  moment : 
here  is  another  variety  of  cloak-wrapt  profes- 
sorial figure.  He  is  white-haired  and  his  face 
too  denotes  age,  yet  he  holds  himself  erect  as  a 
reed,  and  advances  with  a  brisk,  energetic  step. 
We  shall  hear  presently  more  about  this  stalwart 
veteran,  for  he  is  a  conspicuous  figure  among 
Gottingen  celebrities,  no  other  than  the  world- 
famous  Oriental  scholar  and  uncompromising  foe 
to  Prussian  rule.  Professor  Heinrich  Ewald,  to 
whom  we  bear  a  letter  of  introduction  from  our 
Regent's  Park  tutor.  I  got  to  know  his  figure 
well  among  the  promenaders  on  the  vallum,  and 
I  think  only  once  chanced  to  see  another  sample 
of  an  aged  yet  vigorous  professor  quite  so  pictur- 
esque, and  that  was  F.  W.  Newman  in  the  days 
of  his  retirement,  when,  dressed  in  a  dark  cloak 
and  wide-awake  hat,  he  used  to  face  the  wintry 
winds  on  the  sands  of  Weston-super-Mare.  To 
be  one  of  the  "  learned  "  is  a  distinction  in  Got- 
tingen, and  our  professors  as  they  amble  along  the 
avenue  are  being  ever  saluted  by  the  raising  of  a 
hat,  which  courtesy  they  unfailingly  acknowledge. 
We  got  our  first  glimpse  of  the  new  political 
situation  in  Gottingen  from  the  gentleman  in 
whose  house  we  found  agreeable  lodgings.  He 
was  a  very  tall  man,  and  had  a  strength  of  voice 
proportionate  to  his  height.  Like  many  another 
who  has  to  make  his  meaning  clear  to  an  obtuse 
foreigner,  he  resorted  to  the  obvious  device  of 
shouting  at  us.  He  had  been  Rittmeister  (cavalry 
officer)  in  the  Hanoverian  army  ;    but  though  we 


86  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

addressed  him  as  "  Herr  Rittmeister,"  we  knew 
that  his  mihtary  career  was  ended.  We  sus- 
pected that  the  letting  of  his  well-furnished  rooms 
pointed  to  the  pressure  of  reduced  circumstances, 
and  we  ascribed  something  of  irritability  in  his 
manner  now  and  again  to  the  low  condition  of 
his  patriotic  spirits.  Could  it  have  been  that  he 
saw  in  the  two  young  Englishmen  representa- 
tives of  that  England  who  had  failed  to  stand 
by  Hanover  in  the  hour  of  her  need  ? 

As  we  arrived  at  Gottingen  in  the  middle  of 
a  semester  (the  half-yearly  term),  rather  too  late 
to  inscribe  ourselves  for  a  full  course  of  lectures, 
\Ye  took  advantage  of  the  custom  to  hospitiren — 
i.e.  to  attend  lectures  as  non-paying  "  guests  " — 
in  the  classrooms  of  some  of  the  more  famous 
teachers.  Among  others  we  heard  Ritter,  the 
venerable  historian  of  philosophy ;  Lotze,  the 
psychologist  and  metaphysician  ;  and  Heinrich 
Ewald.  By  the  kind  permission  of  Ewald  we 
attended  the  remainder  of  his  courses  as  Iiospites. 
He  had  at  this  time  but  few  hearers,  but  to  us 
he  was  much  the  most  interesting  personality 
among  the  professors.  He  was  one  of  the  staunchest 
of  the  party  loyal  to  the  Hanoverian  King,  and  he 
refused  to  take  the  oath  to  the  Prussian  monarch. 
He  was  threatened  with  expulsion,  but  in  con- 
sideration of  his  eminence  and  his  great  age 
he  was  by  some  special  arrangement  permitted 
to  lecture  at  Gottingen. 

We  heard  exegetieal  lectures  on  the  Psalms  and 
certain  books  of  the  prophets.  Ewald's  appear- 
ance as  he  entered  the  lecture-room  was  arresting. 


IT^' 


wm 


HEINRICH   EWALD  8T 

He  would  step  quickly  up  to  the  cathedra  and 
at  once,  as  if  charged  with  a  pressing  message, 
begin  in  a  thin,  worn  voice  with  the  familiar 
"  Meine  Herren  !  "  The  white,  ascetic  face,  with 
its  prominent  cheekbones  and  its  bright,  spiritual 
eyes,  framed  between  two  long  wisps  of  white 
hair,  and  an  ample  white  neckcloth,  would  alone 
have  riveted  our  attention.  But  the  magical 
power  lay  in  the  utterance.  The  mere  sounds 
v/ere  wonderful,  as  a  rapid  passage  given  in  a 
sort  of  thin  falsetto  gave  place  to  slow  tones  of 
an  unusual  depth  of  pitch  and  richness  of  timbre. 
The  quick  movements,  too,  which  accompanied 
the  declamation,  such  as  little  energetic  tappings 
of  the  closed  hand  when  a  point  had  to  be  ham- 
mered in,  or  the  rapid  turns  of  head  and  hand 
as  the  Hebrew  text  had  to  be  brought  near 
the  speaker's  eye,  added  to  the  intensity  of  the 
expression. 

The  psalmist's  ovv^n  deep  passionateness  appeared 
to  overflow  into  the  lecturer,  as  his  utterance 
now  rose  to  fierce  explosive  cries  of  invective, 
now  sank  to  tender  notes  of  pleading  which  took 
on  something  of  lyrical  rhythm  and  melody.  We 
seemed  to  be  listening  at  one  moment  to  a  poetical 
recitation,  at  another  to  a  dramatic  personifica- 
tion, rather  than  to  a  scholar's  exposition  of  a 
text.  We  soon  discovered  that  this  tempestuous 
ora.tory  was  more  than  an  interpretation  of  the 
v/ords  of  psalmist  or  prophet.  A  new  fascination 
revealed  itself  in  those  fiery  denunciations  when 
we  understood  that  they  v/ere  directed  at  the 
heads    of    the    living,    that    this    spiritual-looking 


88  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

recluse  was  daring  from  his  professorial  chair  to 
strike  at  his  new  earthly  rulers — at  the  Prussian 
King  and  his  minister,  Bismarck,  whose  growing 
potency  he  envisaged  as  a  Frevel  (an  outrage). 

We  took  an  early  opportunity  of  paying  our 
respects  to  Professor  Ewald's  family,  and  through- 
out our  stay  in  Gottingen  found  in  his  home  a 
cordial  hospitality.  Frau  Ewald  was  of  a  dainty, 
mignon  person.  Her  small  head  flanked  with 
bunches  of  short  black  curls,  her  deep-set  dark  eyes 
given  to  sparkling  with  animation,  and  the  two 
small  patches  of  bright  red  on  her  cheeks,  made 
up  a  charming  whole.  Sitting  opposite  to  you 
in  a  plain  brown  dress,  and  leaning  towards  you 
as  she  talked  with  the  head  thrust  well  forwards, 
she  captivated  you  as  by  the  sweet  winsomeness 
of  a  friendly  bird.  She  surprised  us  with  her 
knowledge  of  English  literature,  customs,  etc. 
She  had  accompanied  the  Professor  on  a  memorable 
visit  to  Oxford,  of  which  beautiful  city,  as  well 
as  of  their  friends,  the  j\Iax  Miillcrs  and  others, 
they  both  loved  to  talk.  The  moral  difference  of 
attitude  between  a  professor  in  the  lecture-room 
and  in  the  home  was,  I  think,  in  Ewald's  case, 
less  than  the  usual  one.  As  he  came  down,  wrapt 
in  his  fur-bordered  Schlafrock,  from  his  study  to 
the  evening  meal,  he  still  bore  in  the  whiteness 
of  his  face  and  the  fading  gleam  in  his  tired- 
looking  eyes  traces  of  a  recent  rapture  of  spirit 
from  the  homely  earth  to  the  high  realms  of 
scholarly  contemplation.  Yet  as  a  host,  if  a  little 
absent-minded  now  and  again,  he  showed  a  kindly 
and    almost    tender    interest    in    his    guests.     The 


CHRISTMAS    IN   GERMANY  89 

fierce  hatred  of  the  Prussian  conquerors  threatened 
now  and  again  to  intrude  upon  the  home,  and  I 
remember  liow  Frau  Ewald,  in  an  early  stage  of 
our  acquaintance,  begged  me  never  to  allude  to 
politics  when  conversing  with  her  husband. 

One  visit  to  the  Ewald  family  has  impressed 
itself  in  a  specially  clear  way  on  my  memory. 
Towards  the  end  of  my  stay  in  Gottingen  I  was 
invited  to  spend  Christmas  Eve  with  my  kind 
hosts.  The  German  way  of  observing  this  festival 
was  new  to  me  then,  and  the  sudden  throwing 
open  of  the  door  of  an  ante-room  at  eight  o'clock 
to  the  dazzling  spectacle  of  the  illumined  fir-tree, 
the  outbursts  of  wondering  delight,  and  the  warm 
embracings  as  gifts  were  distributed  all  round, 
made  a  very  agreeable  picture  of  the  older  sort 
of  German  Gemilthlichkeit.  A  specially  enjoyable 
incident  in  the  festivities  was  the  surprise  which 
Frau  Ewald  had  prepared  for  her  husband  and 
daughter  in  the  shape  of  a  new  piano.  The 
Professor  had  something  of  the  look  of  a  puzzled 
child  as  he  gazed  at  the  handsome  new-comer 
in  his  home  surroundings ;  and  when  his  little 
daughter  sat  down  in  front  of  it  and  with  un- 
expected skill  drew  forth  from  its  keys  a  charming 
bit  of  music,  his  face  positively  beamed  with  joy. 

Another  pleasant  time  with  the  Ewalds  that 
shines  serenely  in  my  memory  was  a  picnic  excur- 
sion which  we  made  together  in  the  summer,  to 
the  brace  of  hills  known  as  "  Die  Gleichen."  In 
this  memory-picture,  too,  I  see  the  eager  young- 
hearted  wife  and  mother  doing  her  best  to  diffuse 
an    atmosphere    of    gaiety,    while    the    Professor, 


90  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

still  half  preoccupied  with  his  grave  thouglits, 
follows  her  lead  slowly  and  with  difficulty. 

We  ^vere  invited  to  other  Gottingen  houses, 
where  we  had  a  better  opportunity  of  studying 
certain  aspects  of  German  home-life  and  society 
manners.  Though  apt  to  chafe  under  the  long 
sitting  of  the  evening  meal,  we  managed  to  recoup 
ourselves  by  a  good  deal  of  quiet  quizzing  of  our 
new  surroundings.  We  were  duly  impressed  by 
the  contrast  between  the  jejune  simplicity  of  the 
table  and  the  ladies'  dresses  on  the  one  hand, 
and,  on  the  other,  the  high  degree  of  cultured 
intelligence  shown  by  the  company.  Here  in  a 
little  out-of-the-way  university  town  the  problem 
of  wedding  high  thinking  to  plain  living  seemed 
to  us  to  have  solved  itself  perfectly  and  with 
ease.  The  knowledge  of  English  literature,  old 
as  well  as  new,  shown  by  the  young  women 
surprised  us,  for  it  surpassed  that  of  many  English 
women  of  the  same  age.  Yet  we  lighted  now 
and  again  on  some  amusing  gaps  in  the  ladies' 
acquaintance  with  our  country,  as  that  indicated 
by  the  question  once  put  to  us  by  a  middle-aged 
dame,  whether  it  was  true  that  we  never  saw  the 
sun  in  London.  The  younger  women  V7©re  rarely 
pretty  in  face  or  figure,  and  they  seemed  to  take 
little  pains  to  tone  down  their  plainness  by  decora- 
tive artifices.  All  the  same,  we  soon  found  our- 
selves amiably  disposed  to  the  broad  faces,  which, 
when  animated  by  conversation,  would  take  on 
something  of  the  charm  of  a  spiritual  expression. 

Of  course  we  had  brought  with  us  some  of  our 
home  preferences.     Quietly  attractive  as  they  were, 


CULTURE  91 

the  Gottingen  ladies  had  pretty  obvious  defi- 
ciencies. If  in  the  freedom  of  their  talk  they 
showed  themselves  to  be  less  haunted  than  their 
British  cousins  by  the  fear  of  Mrs.  Grundy, 
they  acquiesced  a  little  too  supinely,  we  thought, 
in  the  restrictions  laid  upon  them  by  their  male 
folk.  \Ye  did  not  quarrel  with  their  alacrity  in 
bearing  teacups  to  their  guests,  and  otherwise 
encouraging  male  indolence  in  the  home ;  but 
we  strongly  disliked  the  rigid  separation  of  the 
sexes  in  the  afternoon  walks  on  the  vallum  and 
elsewhere. 

One  feature  common  to  both  sexes  which  struck 
me  particularly  was  an  unwillingness  to  trespass 
upon  what  is  a  main  field  of  conversation  for 
English  people,  namely  politics.  We  soon  learned 
that  this  reticence  was  not  wholly  due  to  the 
strong  feeling  aroused  by  the  recent  annexation 
of  Hanover  to  Prussia.  The  German  habit  of 
leaving  the  officials  to  settle  what  is  best  for  the 
country  seemed  to  us  to  be  only  one  illustration 
of  the  general  belief  in  the  expert,  in  everybody's 
having  his  special  domain  of  knowledge — his  Fach 
■ — outside  of  which  he  should  be  chary  of  offering 
his  opinion.  I  remember  one  German  professor 
(or  was  it  a  Privatdozent  ?)  asking  me  in  a  quite 
concerned  tone,  "Is  it  true,  Herr  Sully,  that 
George  Grote,  the  historian,  is  also  a  banker  ?  " 
With  this  respect  for  the  expert  there  seemed  to 
associate  itself  a  dull  uniformity  of  opinion  about 
men,  books,  and  other  things,  and  an  apparent 
timidity  in  expressing  views  of  marked  indivi- 
duality.    Even    in    those  days  one  could    see    the 


92  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

tendency  of  the  Germans  to  allow  their  minds  to  be 
"  over-drilled  " — as  I  once  heard  an  Italian  scholar 
describe  it — a  tendency  which  the  predominance 
of  Prussia  in  later  years  has,  I  hear,  made  much 
more  conspicuous. 

Both  young  men  and  maidens  provoked  our 
British  instinct  for  improving  the  foreigner  by 
their  anaemic  parchment-like  complexion,  due,  we 
thought,  to  living  in  unventilated  rooms  and  the 
lack  of  the  more  vigorous  kind  of  tramping  .and 
other  exercises.  They  took  our  criticisms  in  good 
part  :  indeed,  though  they  might  cling  to  their 
mode  of  heating  their  rooms,  they  fully  recognized 
the  Englishman's  general  superiority  to  the  Ger- 
man in  practical  matters.  "  Ach  !  die  praktischen 
Englander  !  "  would  often  escape  from  their  lips, 
as  when  we  pleaded  for  less  malodorous  sani- 
tary arrangements  in  streets  and  houses.  How 
startled  they  would  have  looked  had  we  been 
able  to  prophesy  to  them  that  in  a  few  years 
Germany  would  not  only  have  learned  from 
English  engineers  how  to  supply  her  towns  with 
pure  water,  but  have  surpassed  "  the  practical 
Englishman  "  in  many  departments  of  industrial 
and  other  invention. 

Study  appeared  to  hold  a  small  place  in  the 
affections  of  many  of  the  Gottingen  students. 
Even  the  workers  would  often  join  the  idlers  at 
the  week  end,  making  up  for  the  ascetic  restraint 
during  the  week  by  a  good  carouse.  In  these 
drinking  bouts  (Kneipen)  an  astonishing  amount 
of  beer  would  disappear.  The  swallowing  of  a 
regulation  quantity  was  secured  by  certain  devices. 


DUELLING  93 

such  as  a  command  from  the  president  of  the 
gathering  to  empty  at  one  gulp  a  large  glass 
(Schoppen).  The  effects  of  these  copious  imbibings 
appeared  in  the  frequent  stoutness  of  the  students, 
some  of  whom  attained  the  glorious  distinction  / 
of  being  named  "  beer-casks  "  {Bierjdsse^.  I -^ 

The  frequent  sight  of  a  slashed  face  among 
the  students,  especially  those  wearing  corps  in- 
signia, naturally  made  us  curious  to  learn  about 
their  duels  and  the  strange  code  of  honour  which 
determined,  among  other  matters,  in  what  cir- 
cumstances a  rapier,  a  sabre,  or  a  pistol  was  to 
be  used.  The  rapier  was  the  resort  for  most  cases 
of  wounded  honour,  real  or  assumed,  and  we 
found  that  there  existed  quite  a  lore  as  to  the 
parts  of  the  body  to  be  protected  and  the  proper 
parts  to  be  aimed  at.  The  nasal  protuberance 
appeared  to  be  a  favourite  object  of  attack.  I 
remember  once  innocently  asking  a  student  whether 
the  combatants  took  their  big  dogs  with  them 
into  the  duelling-hall,  and  was  told  that  this  was 
forbidden,  on  the  ground  that  one  of  them  might 
take  a  fancy  to  a  human  nose,  which  was  still, 
by  the  semi-military  laws  of  duelling,  the  wounded 
man's  possession,  and  susceptible  of  being  re- 
attached to  his  face.  The  degree  of  glory 
attained  by  a  wound  was  measured  by  the  number 
of  stitches  needed  in  sewing  it  up.  The  mark 
of  honour  had  the  advantage  of  great  duration. 
At  the  time  I  write  of,  it  was  quite  common 
to  meet  in  Germany  a  middle-aged  man  with 
his  face  still  scarred  by  some  combat  at  the 
University. 


94  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

The  majority  of  the  students,  I  suspect,  made 
but  few  and  short  excursions  into  the  country. 
An  Aiifluehi  beyond  the  town  ramparts,  commonly 
reduced  itself  to  a  languid  tramp  of  two  or  three 
miles,  with  frequent  halts  at  Gasthduser  (inns). 
During  the  winter,  longer  excursions  into  the 
neighbourhood  were  made  in  sleighs.  The  high 
personages  among  the  corps  students  would  make 
a  fine  display  on  these  occasions,  with  their 
rich  furs,  their  elegant  sleighs  and  horses,  and 
their  big  hounds.  Even  we  despised  "  savages  " 
used  to  make  up  sledge  parties.  I  took  part  in 
a  very  enjoyable  one,  got  up  (if  I  remember  aright) 
by  the  son  of  Professor  Henle,  the  celebrated 
anatomist.  Our  party  consisted  of  twenty  and 
odd  men,  each  of  whom  brought  a  lady  with 
him.  Headed  by  a  band  of  music,  we  set  out  in 
the  early  afternoon.  A  postilion  sitting  behind 
managed  by  frequent  crackings  of  a  long  whip  to 
keep  the  pair  of  horses  up  to  their  work.  After 
a  drive  of  seven  miles  over  glittering  snowy  roads 
we  alighted  at  a  Gasthaus,  w^here  coffee  and  cakes 
had  been  ordered.  The  half-day's  junketing 
wound  up  with  a  supper  and  a  Cinderella  dance. 
It  struck  me  as  a  good  illustration  of  the  truth 
that,  if  we  care  to  do  without  display,  it  is  quite 
easy  to  secure  a  considerable  amount  of  refined 
social  enjoyment  by  the  employment  of  a  few 
simple  materials. 

Gdttingen  could  boast  of  a  small  theatre  which 
was  duly  patronized  by  the  students.  We  natu- 
rally frequented  it,  if  only  to  further  our  aural 
mastery    of   the    language.     Here    one    could    see, 


PRUSSIAN   OFFICERS  95 

along  with  classical  plays,  already  familiar  in 
reading,  lighter  farcical  pieces  from  the  French. 
Better  theatrical  resoiu'ccs  were  to  be  fomid  in 
the  little  Hofstadt  of  Cassell,  easily  reached  by 
rail ;  and  among  the  pleasurable  recollections  of 
my  Gottingen  days  are  evenings  passed  in  its 
nice  little  opera-house,  where  the  works  of  Spohr 
and  other  less  well-known  composers  were  repre- 
sented. 

The  political  upheaval  which  disturbed  the 
academic  serenity  of  Gottingen  forced  itself  upon 
our  attention  in  more  ways  than  one.  The  newly 
imported  Prussian  officers  were  to  be  seen  all 
over  the  town,  with  ears  no  doubt  alert  for  any 
signs  of  the  widespread  disloyalty  to  the  new 
masters.  They  were  to  be  seen,  too,  at  such  social 
functions  as  the  afternoon  Familien-Concerte,  at 
which  the  gebildete  Gottingen  families  sit  round 
tables  and  manage,  along  with  some  show  of  atten- 
tion to  the  music,  to  get  a  good  bit  of  chatting 
done  over  their  coffee  and  cakes.  From  a  gallery 
at  the  back  of  the  hall  I  could  watch  the  pretty 
scene  as  a  student  or  two  joined  a  table  and  "  made 
the  cour  "  to  a  fair  maiden.  Hither,  too,  might 
move  with  brisker  step  a  Prussian  officer,  who 
cut  an  amusing  figure  as  he  executed  the  spasmodic 
hip-bend — a  mode  of  salutation,  by  the  way, 
which  admirably  illustrates  Professor  Bergson's 
conception  of  the  ludicrous  as  something  in  human 
behaviour  that  looks  like  mechanical  rigidity  His 
arrival  would  naturally  cause  a  little  flutter,  since 
only  a  few  families  as  yet  ventured  to  concede 
the    entree    to  these   flushed    conquerors    of  their 


96  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

King  and  army.  The  young  lady  who  happened 
to  be  the  object  of  one  of  these  advances  might 
blush  and  look  awkward  for  a  moment.  But  the 
sex  has  been  known  to  be  accommodating  when 
one  uniform  displaces  another,  and  while  watch- 
ing the  pretty  bit  of  acting  we  hazarded  the  re- 
mark that  the  stiff,  angular  obeisance  of  this  new 
cavalier  had  probably  seemed  in  her  eyes  to  be 
ivunderschon,  if  not  himmelisch. 

A  poignant  illustration  of  the  divided  state 
of  feeling  in  Gottingen  towards  the  new  rulers 
occurred  on  the  birthday  of  the  Prussian  King. 
The  proprietor  of  a  house  in  which  we  afterwards 
resided,  wishing  to  show  his  speedy  transference 
of  loyalty  from  one  crowned  head  to  another, 
boldly  unfurled  on  his  housetop  the  Prussian 
banner.  The  more  conservative  citizens  objected 
to  this  cutting  down  of  the  decent  period  of 
patriotic  mourning  for  their  dethroned  monarch, 
and  they  began  to  assemble  in  front  of  the  house 
and  to  throw  stones  at  the  windows.  I  heard, 
too,  how  bitterly  divided  were  professors  and 
others  upon  the  burning  question  of  shifting  their 
loyalty.  Friendships  of  many  years  were  strained 
by  these  divisions,  some  of  them,  alas !  to  the 
breaking-point.  It  was  my  first  experience  of 
one  of  the  painful  consequences  of  a  war  of  con- 
quest, which,  though  apt  to  be  dismissed  as  a 
small  one,  has  to  be  reckoned  in  any  adequate 
comparison  of  its  good  and  evil  aspects.  It  left 
a  deep  impression  on  my  mind,  and  without  doubt 
sowed  the  first  seed  of  a  lasting  detestation  of 
all  subjugation  of  weaker  by  stronger  States. 


A  TRIAD  97 

Towards  the  end  of  my  sojourn  in  Gottingen 
I  witnessed  a  weirdly  fierce  outburst  of  pro- 
Prussian  enthusiasm.  It  occurred,  of  all  places  in 
the  world,  in  the  "  Literary  Museum,"  as  we  used, 
I  think,  to  call  it — a  sort  of  club  where  members 
of  the  University  and  others  could  dine,  read 
papers  from  all  parts  of  Europe,  and  indulge  in 
quiet  talk.  The  perpetrator  of  this  bit  of  execrable 
"  bad  form "  was  an  American,  who  by  some 
freak  of  European  wandering  had  drifted  to  our 
retired  university  town.  As  a  number  of  us, 
mostly  Germans,  were  reading  the  journals,  he 
began  in  a  loud  voice,  apropos  of  nothing,  to 
extol  Count  Bismarck.  In  the  whole  history  of 
the  world,  he  assured  us  with  abundant  emphasis, 
there  had  been  only  three  really  great  human 
figures,  Jesus  Christ,  Napoleon,  and  Bismarck. 
The  juxtaposition  of  names  was  suggestive  of  an 
unbalanced  brain,  and  we  heard  shortly  after- 
wards that  this  eccentric  orator  had  become  quite 
mad  and  was  confined  in  an  asylum  in  the 
neighbourhood. 

During  my  second  semester  I  exchanged 
lodgings  for  a  pension  which  was  frequented  by 
foreign  students.  It  was  kept  by  a  Frau  Heintze, 
and  lay  in  a  street  known  as  Geismar  (or  Kleine 
Geismar)  Strasse.  Our  good,  solicitous  hostess  was 
of  a  weakly  aspect,  and  wore  a  sad  and  shrinking 
expression.  She  was  old  enough  to  console  her- 
self for  any  pinchings  in  present  circumstances 
by  going  back  to  a  glorious  past  when  she  lived  in 
Weimar  and  saw  the  still  imposing  figure  of  the 
Minister  von   Goethe.     Among  nearer   events   she 

8 


98  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

WQuld  narrate  the  doings  of  her  §on,  who  was 
serving  in  the  Marines.  She  was  supported  in 
her  table-talk  by  a  daughter,  a  strikingly  blonde 
maiden  even  in  Germany,  v/ho  had  undergone 
a  fine  Aiisbikhing  and  was  able  to  correct  any 
inaccuracies  in  our  German  with  perfect  peda- 
gogic seriousness,  undisturbed  by  any  side  glance 
at  their  ludicrous  character. 

In   this   pleasant   house    I   found   not   only  iny 
friend   Medley,    but   a   httle   reading   party   made 
up  of  Alfred  West  and  old  students  of  his  fatTier's 
well-known   school   at   Caversham.     We   filled   the 
late-summer  days  with  youthful  jollity.    We  dived 
and  splashed  in  the  Weser,  the  little  stream  that 
Heine    pokes    his    fun    at.      We    marched    across 
the  peasants'  fields  singing  "  John  Brown's  body  " 
and    other    rollicking    songs,    thereby    greatly    in- 
censing the   good   Bauern,  v/ho   menaced   us  with 
angr}^    cries   and   brandishings   of  pitchforks,    and 
were,    I   think,    only   deterred    by   something    un- 
canny  in   our   outlandish   figures   from   giving   us 
worse    signs    of    their    displeasure.     We    explored 
the  pretty  ruined  Castle  of  Haustein  and  Miinden, 
finishing    with    a    Sunday    at    Cassel,    where    we 
laughingly  watched,  along  v»dth  the  irnpressionable 
Cassel  children  and  their  elders,  the  quite  enjoy- 
able artificial  spectacle  of  letting  the  y>^ater  descend 
over    a    chain    of    cascades    and    pools    from    the 
heigiits    of    V/ilhelmshohe.     Our    enjoyment    was 
darkened   by   no   forecast   of  what   was   to   come 
three  years  or  so  later,  when  the  defeated  French 
Emperor  was  interned  in  this  princely  pleasance. 
I   set  myself  now   diligently  to   study.     ]^wald 


HERMANN  LOTZE  99 

still  lectured,  though  he  had  been  pensioned  off 
by  the  Prussian  Government,  and  I  continued  to 
hear  him.  In  psychology  and  philosophy  I  was 
now  able  to  profit  from  the  lectures  of  Hermann 
Lotze  and  other  teachers.  Lotze  was  an  odd- 
looking  little  man,  with  a  black-cherry  kind  of 
eye.  A  high,  stiff-looking  black  stock  gave  an 
aspect  of  rigorous  severity  to  his  figure  ;  but 
this  was  relieved,  when  he  spoke,  by  a  queer  little 
pursing  movement  of  the  mouth  which  seemed 
to  me  to  punctuate  some  fine  shade  of  ironical 
humour.  He  read  his  lectures  in  a  monotonous 
way,  and  I  was  told  that  he  varied  them  but 
little  from  year  to  year.  At  pretty  regular  in- 
tervals he  would  slow  his  pace,  dictating  a  precis 
of  the  passage  just  completed. ^  He  was  one  of 
the  most  popular  professors  at  Gottingen,  and  his 
large  auditorium  was  packed  with  students,  in- 
cluding not  only  members  of  the  philosophic 
faculty,  but  many  of  the  medical ;  for,  like  Wundt, 
Lotze  had  approached  psychology  and  the  other 
branches  of  philosophy  from  the  physiological 
side,  and  had  won  fame  by  his  "  Medecinische 
Psychologic."  While  I  was  at  Gottingen  he  re- 
ceived an  invitation  to  go  to  a  larger  university, 
and  upon  declining  it,  he  was  honoured  by  his 
numerous  student  admirers  with  a  Fac}(elzug  j 
(torch-procession).  His  teaching  did  much  to  ' 
widen  my  outlook.  Indeed,  his  particular  stand- 
point in  philosophy,  from  which  he  tried  to  do 
justice  at   once  to  Kant  and   to   Herbart,  if  not 

*  These  highly  compressed  summaries  were  after  his  death 
published  in  small  volumes  under  the  title  of  '  Dictate." 


100  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

also  to  Hegel,  qualified  him  in  a  peculiar  way  to 
be  the  teacher  of  one  like  myself,  whose  reading 
hitherto  had  been  rather  one-sided. 

Lotze  lived  in  a  queer  little  house  outside 
the  vallum,  which  the  students  had  dub'bed 
the  "  pepper-box."  His  menage  was  noticeably 
simpler  than  that  of  the  Ewalds,  and  one  soon 
felt  at  ease  in  his  bright  and  kindly  family  circle. 
I  heard  from  him  after  I  had  returned  to  England, 
and  he  was  good  enough  to  help  me  in  my  later 
reading  and  wrote  for  me  a  handsome  testimonial 
when  I  began  to  aspire  to  a  Chair.  Before  I  left 
Gottingen  he  had  suggested  to  me  that  I  might 
try  teaching  work  in  Germany,  by  setting  up  as 
a  Privatdozent,  laying  stress  on  the  value  of  teach- 
ing to  a  student  of  philosophy  in  compelling  him 
to  clear  up  and  arrange  his  ideas  {irCs  Reine 
bringen). 

While  bus}^  reading  philosophy  in  preparation 
for  the  M.A.  degree  of  London  University,  I 
managed  to  continue  lighter  intellectual  pursuits. 
I  read  as  much  German  as  I  could,  including 
poetry  of  Goethe,  Schiller,  Heine,  prose  works  of 
Lessing,  Schiller,  and  other  authors  bearing  upon 
the  aesthetics  of  poetry  and  art,  as  well  as  a  fair 
amount  of  lighter  literature.  I  continued  to  give 
some  time  to  my  musical  studies,  having  dis- 
covered a  most  amiable  young  pianist  who  heard 
and  corrected  my  performances  on  the  instru- 
ment. He  was  of  so  nicely  balanced  a  nervous 
organization  that  once,  when  I  asked  him  to  play 
a  piece  of  Schumann  just  after  smoking  a  cigar- 
ette, he  declined  in   a  shocked  sort  of  way.     By 


.ESTHETICS  101 

way  of  contrast,  I  was  reminded  of  him  years 
later  when,  attending  a  smoking-concert  in  London, 
I  saw  a  man  quietly  lay  down  a  cigar  and  im- 
mediately begin  to  sing  a  rather  exacting  song. 
This  young  Gottingen  pianist  was  an  ardent  ad- 
mirer of  Vischer,  the  author  of  what  was  at  that 
time  the  most  profound  and  exhaustive  system 
of  aesthetics,  and  he  used  to  discourse  to  me 
enthusiastically  on  some  of  the  abstruse  Hegelian 
subtleties  in  Vischer 's  volumes. 

My  advance  in  the  use  of  the  German  language 
enabled  me  to  take  a  larger  part  in  the  social 
life  of  Gottingen.  I  joined  a  Gesangverein,  and 
got  to  know,  among  other  new  things,  Schubert's 
unfinished  opera.  I  also  shared  in  some  of  the 
lighter  amusements  of  the  place.  At  a  dance  I 
got  to  know  two  Scotch  sisters  who  were  staying 
in  Gottingen.  They  entertained  me  with  their 
first  impressions  of  German  life.  Among  other 
funny  things  they  told  me  that  when  on  a  sunny 
winter  day  they  opened  wide  their  window,  quite 
a  crowd  of  citizens  gathered  in  the  street  below 
to  see  this  last  vagary  of  the  "  mad  English " 
{Verriickte  Engldnder).  The  proper  function  of  a 
window  is  to  remain  shut,  so  as  to  keep  the  day's 
supply  of  stove-heat  from  being  dissipated. 

At  the  end  of  the  winter  semester  1867-8  I 
left  Gottingen  for  good.  If  Germany  had  nipped 
off  some  early  spiritual  growths,  she  had  fostered 
and  matured  others.  During  my  year  and  a 
quarter  in  the  country  I  had  widened  my  observa- 
tion of  men  and  of  life.  I  had  come  to  know 
with   some   intimacy   an   admirable   type   of  char- 


lOS  MY  LIFE  AND  FRIENDS 

acter — ^the  Gelehrter,  which  unites  with  great 
knowledge  and  brilliant  intellectual  powers  a 
singular  moderation  in  desire  and  simplicity  in 
mode  of  life.  I  held  it  to  be  no  small  advantage 
to  an  Englishman  to  have  come  into  daily  contact 
with  men  who  seemed  to  be  the  best  modern 
representatives  of  the  wisdom  of  life  as  con- 
ceived by  ancient  thinkers.  Germany's  chief  £ind 
most  valued  lesson  to  me  was  "  Strive  to  be 
rather  than  to  appear." 

Of  the  personalities  I  met  with  during  my  stay, 
Ewald  was  by  far  the  most  impressive.  Eveti 
to-d8.y  I  can  recall  his  features  and  movements 
more  vividly  than  those  of  friends  of  much  longer 
standing.  I  continued  to  get  news  of  the  Pro- 
fessor after  my  return  to  England.  A  letter  from 
a  Gottingen  lady,  dated  February  1869,  informed 
me  that  he  had  lately  got  into  trouble  by  saying 
something  against  the  King  of  Prussia.  He  was 
prosecuted,  but  in  the  end  was  acquitted  (frei- 
gesprochen).  In  January  1870,  Frau  Ewald,  on 
sending  me  a  New  Year's  greeting,  told  me  that 
the  Professor  was  still  giving  daily  an  Oriental 
lecture.  It  was,  I  think,  soon  after  this  that  he 
was  elected  member  of  the  Prussian  "'Parliament 
for  the  province  of  Hanover,  to  which  assembly 
he  was  bold  enough  to  transfer  something  of  his 
deep-seated  hostility  to  Prussian  institutions  and 
the  Prussian  spirit. ^ 

To-day,      when      Germany,      while     making     d 

I  The  best  English  account  of  Ewald's  Hfe  and  work  wil  1 
be  found  in  the  volume  "  Heinrich  Ewald,"  by  Professor 
T.  Witton  Davies. 


THE   OLD   SPIRIT  AND   THE  NEW  103 

desperate  effort  to  go  on  chattering  about  the 
culture  which  she  once  prized,  seems  at  heart 
ablaze  with  the  flames  of  war-fury,  I  find  a  strange 
interest  in  reverting  to  those  distant  Gottingen 
days.  What  a  contrast  in  spirit  and  in  aimS 
does  Germany  of  to-day  make  Vv^ith  her  a^ncestress 
of  the  sixties  !  She  has  gained  her  political  unity 
and  along  with  it  a  richer  material  prosperit)^ 
But  has  she  not  lost  something  too  ?  On  leaving 
Gottingen  my  kind  friend  Frau  Ewald  gave  me, 
zur  Erimierung,  a  dear  little  illustrated  edition 
of  Goethe's  "  Hermann  and  Dorothea,"  a  poem 
which  contains  a  touching  description  of  the 
sufferings  of  poor  refugees  driven  across  the  Rhine 
by  the  terrors  and  the  desolations  of  war.  The 
stalwart  Germans  of  to-day,  who  are  probably 
the  most  unsparing  devastators  the  modern  world 
has  seen,  cannot,  one  supposes,  feel  very  grateful 
to  their  greatest  poet  for  choosing  such  a  senti- 
mental theme.  Perhaps  some  of  the  professors, 
who  have  not  shrunk  from  offering  apologies  for 
such  things  as  breach  of  solemn  covenant  and 
unprovoked  attack  upon  a  small  State,  will  further 
exercise  their  patriotic  wits  by  giving  us  a  new 
cryptic  interpretation  of  Goethe's  poem. 

In  the  lurid  light  of  the  doings  of  the  German 
of  to-day,  the  figure  of  Ewald  takes  on  for  my 
imagination  a  new  and  profounder  significance. 
He  was  not  only  the  learned  interpreter  of  prophets, 
he  was  himself  a  prophet,  anticipating  Avith  more 
than  a  vague  Ahnung,  with  a  clairvoyant  pre- 
science, how  the  Prussian  brain  and  hand  would 
transform    his    beloved    people,    forcing    them    to 


104  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

bow  the  knee  to  false  gods  and  to  cast  into  the 
rubbish-heap  all  that  was  best  in  their  old  ideals. 
Was  there  not  a  prophetic  strain  in  the  withering 
question  he  put  to  an  Englishman  who  came  to 
study  the  Semitic  languages  :  "  Young  man,  is 
it  a  time  to  be  studying  dead  languages  when 
forty  millions  of  Germans  are  governed  by  a 
devil  ?  " 


CHAPTER    V 

A   FIRST   WANDERING 

Travel  has  been  regarded  as  a  suitable  finish  to 
study.  Conformably  with  this  idea,  I  decided 
to  relieve  the  strain  of  study  at  Gottingen  by 
spending  four  months  of  the  summer  semester 
in  travelling  through  parts  of  Germany,  the  Tyrol, 
and  North  Italy.  After  a  few  days  of  historical 
dreaming  over  the  fascinating  scenes  of  Luther 
at  the  Wartburg  and  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  at 
Weimar,  I  made  for  the  Saxon  and  Prussian  Uni- 
versity of  Halle  on  the  Saale,  having  received 
the  valuable  introduction  of  a  letter  to  Professor 
Tholuck  there.  The  venerable  Professor  was  a 
little  terrifying  in  his  features,  but  he  soon 
showed  himself  to  be  kind,  and  he  at  once  intro- 
duced me  to  some  of  his  theological  students. 
These  did  their  best  to  inoculate  me — more  or 
less  playfully — with  their  enthusiasm  for  their 
master,  or,  as  they  put  it,  to  see  me  properly 
"  be-Tholuckt." 

At  Halle  I  heard  but  few  lectures.  The  river, 
with  its  nightingales  in  the  early  summer,  may 
have  seduced  me  from  the  professors'  auditoria. 
Yet  I  remember  attending  as  guest  at  lectures  by 

105 


106  MY  IJFE   AND   FRIENDS 

Erdmann,  the  historian  of  philosophy;  and  I  saw 
a  good  deal  of  the  doings  of  students  outside  the 
lecture-room.  Among  social  relaxations,  I  was 
initiated  into  the  rollicking  proceedings  of  a 
Kommers  or  Kneipe.  It  followed  a  concert 
given  by  the  Gesangverein,  and  was  attended 
by  professors  as  well  as  students.  A  president 
was  appointed  to  lead  the  proceedings  and  .to 
maintain  such  order  as  was  possible.  Comic  songs 
were  sung,  healths  drunk,  and  mugs  brought 
together  with  a  lively  ring.  "When  the  hubbub 
became  unendurable  even  to  Kneipers^  shouts  of 
"  Ad  loca  !  "  "  Silcntium  !  "  etc.,  came  from  all 
parts.  I  did  not  know  then  that  by  joining  in 
these  revels  I  was  illustrating  unknowingly  a 
remark  of  George  Meredith  in  "  Victoria  "  :  "  When 
one  really  takes  to  foreigners,  there  is  a  peculiar 
impulse  (I  speak  of  the  people  who  are  accessible 
to  impulse)  to  make  brothers  of  them." 

I  was  so  fortunate  as  to  be  in  Halle  during  the 
celebration  of  the  fifty  years'  jubilee  which  com- 
memorated the  union  of  the  University  with  the 
older  University  of  Wittenberg — illustrious  by 
the  shelter  it  gave  to  the  heretic  Martin  Luther. 
I  think  I  owe  it  to  Tholuek  that  I  was  able  to 
participate  in  the  festivity.  The  town  was  filled 
with  visitors,  among  v>  hom  one  saw  fathers,  them- 
selves, perhaps,  former  students  of  the  University^ 
linked  arm  in  arm  v/ith  present  ones.  The  streets 
wore  the  gala  attire  of  bunting  and  greenery,  the 
joyousness  of  which  was  thrown  into  relief  by  the 
black  and  white  device  on  the  Prussian  flag. 

The   more   strictly   academic   part   of  the   pro- 


HALLE  lot 

ceedings  was  worthy  of  the  occasion.  The  cere- 
mony of  receiving  in  the  aula  the  delegates 
and  hearing  their  congratulatory  addresses  was 
especially  imposing.  The  entry  of  the  beadles, 
conducting  to  their  seats  the  Rector  and  the 
professors  in  their  velvet  robes,  offered  a  striking 
snectacle.  The  black  robes  of  the  theologians 
seemed  to  punctuate  the  warmer  colouring  of 
the  members  of  the  other  faculties.  Then  the 
doors  were  thrown  open,  and  a  blast  of  triumph 
announced  the  entry  of  a  second  procession  of 
delegates  still  more  gorgeously  arrayed.  Among 
these  was  the  Prussian  Minister  of  Culture,  Von 
Miiller.  The  rest  Were  professors  from  various 
sister  universities,  both  Lutheran  and  Catholic, 
some  of  whom  were  already  known  to  us  by  name, 
such  as  Kuno  Fischer  of  Jena  and  Ilitzig  of  Heidel- 
berg. The  congratulatory  addresses  were  warmly 
applauded,  that  of  Kuno  Fischer — a  rare  orator 
among  professors — being  especially  cheered.  Hardly 
less  vigorous  acclamations  greeted  the  tactful  re- 
sponses of  the  Rector,  Professor  Beyschlag,  among 
which  I  remember  the  telling  though  hardly  trans- 
latable shout,  "  Hochstgeistreich  !  " 

The  function  of  conferring  honorary  degrees 
{EhrenpromotiGfien)  held  a  pleasant  surprise  for 
me.  Among  the  names  of  recipients  of  degrees 
was  that  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  whom  the  University 
pronounced  to  be  vir  ilhistrissimus  per  omnem 
orhem  terrarum  celeherrimus.  Stress  was  laid  on 
the  Germans'  respect  for  the  scope  of  his  researches, 
which  embraced  not  only  the  sciences  of  Economics 
.and  Logic,  but  that  of  Law.     The  tendency  among 


108  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

Germans  is  to  over-specialization  of  study,  con- 
fining themselves  within  the  boundaries  of  their 
prescribed  Fach. 

These  graver  academic  functions  were  judiciously 
supplemented  by  some  delightful  excursions.  One 
of  them  was  a  gondola  procession  to  Wittekind, 
a  pleasure  resort  on  the  Saale,  about  three-quarters 
of  a  mile  from  Halle.  The  professors  and  guests 
were  taken  in  larger  barges  and  smaller  gondola- 
like boats,  while  the  students  paddled  their  watery 
way  in  canoes. 

The  Saale  at  Halle  is  a  stream  which  fits  the 
size  of  the  University  and  evades  the  ridicule 
poured  by  Heine  on  the  tiny  Weser  at  Gottingen. 
It  looks  companionable  and  gemiithlich  as  it 
flows  slowly  between  the  Cafe  Gardens  and  the 
low  hills,  and  glides  about  the  wooded  islets, 
where  the  note  of  the  nightingale  may  often 
surprise  you  with  one  of  its  rich  ahnungsvoll 
utterances.  The  pace  of  the  procession  had  a 
soothing  German  slowness,  affording  ample  oppor- 
tunity for  seeing  every  detail  of  the  scene  and 
for  giving  adequate  voice  to  our  admiration. 
We  lingered  in  the  gardens  of  Wittekind,  drinking 
our  coffee  to  the  strains  of  an  orchestra,  and  on 
returning  in  the  twilight  our  path  was  lit  up  with 
the  flames  of  Chinese  lanterns  and  fireworks  on 
the  banks. 

The  jubilee  festival  ended  with  a  banquet,  fol- 
lowed by  a  torchlight  procession  of  the  students, 
and  a  general  Kommers  or  Grand  Kneijoe  ;  at  which 
last  renowned  professors  might  be  seen  emptying 
their  schoppen  with  students  who  had  yet  to  win 


THE   KOMMERS  109 

their  spurs.  A  striking  close  to  the  celebration 
was  given  when  the  students,  after  extinguishing 
their  torches  in  the  market-place,  burst  into  their 
favourite  song  in  their  Kommershuch,  "  Gaudeamus 
igitur  juvenes  dum  sumus  !  " 

The  curious  mixture  of  Christian  and  Pagan 
sentiment  in  our  University  customs  was  illus- 
trated by  the  sequence  of  this  Horatian  strain 
of  carye  diem  upon  the  solemn  sermon  which 
Oberconsistorialrath  Tholuck  had  preached  the 
day  before  in  the  Domkirche. 

In  this  way,  to  the  dignity  of  the  University 
proceedings  was  happily  added  an  element  of 
good-fellowship,  and  of  the  jollity,  too,  that 
became  a  festival  in  which  youth  filled  so  large 
a  place.  Both  the  boylike  shouts  of  approval  at 
passages  in  the  Rector's  adroit  addresses  and  the 
free  camaraderie  of  the  Komrners  struck  me  as 
echt  deutsch  in  the  best  sense,  and  a  welcome  change 
from  the  more  formal  academic  functions  of  our 
English  folk,  whom  I  once  heard  a  German 
describe — in  his  haste,  let  us  hope — as  kcdtblutige 
Engldnder. 

During  my  stay  at  Halle  I  ran  over  to  the 
Moravian  settlement  at  Gnadau,  where  another 
festival  was  to  be  held,  the  first  centennial  cele- 
bration of  its  foundation.  It  formed  a  curious 
contrast  to  the  more  imposing  academic  function 
at  Halle.  The  simple,  severe  form  of  the  village, 
consisting  of  a  central  square  divided  by  hedge- 
rows into  smaller  grass-covered  squares,  and 
liberally  shaded  by  lime-trees,  seemed  to  fit  the 
serene  name,  *'  the  meadow  of  grace."     The  Sunday 


110  MY   LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

service  which  I  attended  was  a  httlc  long,  and  its 
slowly  drawn-out  prayers  and  liynnis  had  some- 
thing of  the  melancholy  effect  of  a  Scotch  kirk. 
Yet  the  whitewashed  church  looked  almost  pretty 
on  the  following  festival  day,  when  the  pure 
masses  of  white  on  the  walls,  ceiling,  and  galleries 
found  their  complement  in  the  white  spots 
of  the  sisters'  caps  and  shawls,  receiving  only 
a  discreet  touch  of  colour  from  the  festoons 
and  hangings  of  pink  gauze  which  adorned 
its  walls. 

My  visit  to  Leipzig  synchronized  with  the  hold- 
ing of  the  celebrated  Messc,  or  big  fair.  Tin; 
gathering,  thougli  now  smaller  than  it  used  to  be, 
still  gave  the  impression  of  a  crowded  city.  One 
saw  people  of  various  nationalities,  mostly  Jews, 
I  think,  engaged  in  marketing.  The  buying  and 
selling  of  books,  once  a  chief  feature  in  this 
central  Eiu'opean  mart,  had,  of  course,  declined. 
Among  other  curious  experiences  during  my 
stay  here  was  the  Church  of  England  service 
in  the  concert-hall  of  the  Conservatorium,  the 
celebrated  Gewandthaus,  where  busts  of  famous 
German  composers,  from  Bach  onwards,  looked 
down  upon  the  English  worshippers.  Mendelssohn 
seemed  to  smile  on  the  visitor  from  a  land  with 
which  he  too  was  familiar.  One  of  the  most 
enjoyable  incidents  in  my  visit  was  a  day 
passed  in  the  country  house  of  Carl  Tauchnitz, 
a  member  of  the  well-known  publishing  firm.  He 
was  a  good  specimen  of  the  old-fashioned  German 
gentleman,  whose  rather  formal  manners  could 
not  hide  a  deep  and  genuine  kindness  of  heart. 


DRESDEN  l\l 

We  were  a  fairly  large  party,  and  I  here 
saw  German  family  life  on  a  large  scale, 
refined  by  an  atmosphere  of  good  breeding.  Just 
opposite  to  us  was  a  house  in  whieh  Buonaparte 
had  slept  before  the  famous  battle  of  Leipzig. 
On  stepping  into  the  omnibus  which  was  to  take 
me  back  to  Leipzig,  a  man-servant  handed  to  me 
a  beautiful  bouquet  of  roses  and  carnations. 

At  Dresden  I  hrst  fell  under  the  stronger  spell 
of  art.  During  my  three  years  of  study  in  London 
I  had  been  too  busy  to  make  a  serious  study  of 
our  picture-galleries.  Not  only  leisure,  but  a 
full  flooding  of  spirit  with  the  more  playful  holiday 
mood  is  needed  for  seizing  the  finer  and  more 
detaining  charms  of  painting.  I  lingered  again 
and  again  before  Rapliael's  wonderful  "  Madonna 
di  San  Sisto,"  and  was  only  a  little  less  fascinated 
by  the  work  of  Tilian,  Correggio,  and  other 
Italians.  The  gallery  was  for  me  an  admirable 
atrium  to  the  temple  of  art  in  Italy. 

Another  art,  already  beloved,  unfolded  new 
beauties  to  me  during  this  visit  to  Dresden.  I 
was  lucky  enough  to  secure  here  a  first  hearing 
of  Richard  Wagner.  The  work  was  "  Tannhauser," 
and  my  German  reading  helped  to  make  the 
drama  understandable.  IMuch  of  the  music  struck 
me  as  strange,  and  inchoate  in  form.  But  I  felt 
something  of  its  ravishing  beauty,  and  later  in 
Berlin  acquired  a  fuller  appreciation  of  its  wonder- 
ful expressiveness. 

The  next  stage  of  my  wanderings  was  a  plunge 
from  art  into  nature.  A  tour,  partly  by  steamboat 
and  rail,  partly  on   foot,  through   the   pretty  but 


112  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

absurdly  named  Saxon  Switzerland^  into  Bohemia, 
brought  another  joyous  expansion  of  soul.  I 
had  not  yet  seen  the  Rhine,  so  that  my  trip  on 
the  Elbe  by  steamer  was  something  delieiously 
new.  The  ever-ehanging  scene,  as  we  moyed 
leisurely  up  the  river,  past  hill-slopes  and  hollows 
where  villas  and  ehurehes  glistened  and  terraeed 
vineyards  spread  themselves  out  to  the  sun,  past 
fantastic  cliffs  and  peaked  hills — from  which  might 
peep  down  some  Royal  summer  residence  of  the 
Saxon  King  or  some  massive  fortress — regaled  the 
eye  with  a  continuous,  yet  ever  varying,  feast. 
Still  more  enjoyable  were  the  foot  excursions  to 
the  Bastei,  along  a  road  flanked  with  masses  of 
rock,  whose  crests  were  curiously  crenellated  by 
Nature's  hand,  and  to  the  Grosser  Winterberg, 
a  mountain  of  some  1,700  feet.  From  the  crest 
of  the  latter  I  witnessed  one  of  my  memorable 
thunderstorms.  It  approached  us  in  long  masses 
of  black  cloud  with  skirts  trailing  on  the  ground. 
From  above  and  round  about  these  dark  masses 
white  light  streamed  in,  so  that  every  part  of  the 
landscape  in  turn  was  wrapt  in  a  deadly  pall  and 
then  kissed  back  into  life  by  shafts -of  shining 
light.  In  a  bit  of  the  landscape  near  the  Elbe 
the  clearing  up  of  the  storm  reached  its  maximum 
degree  of  beauty.  The  clouds  were  now  rent 
towards  their  edges,  and  w^hite  light  shot  through 
their  fleecy  streaks.  These  shafts  of  light  looked 
like  w^hite  columns  supporting  a  huge  black  sar- 
cophagus.    From    the    same    Grosser    Winterberg 

^  The  scenery  might  much  more  naturally  suggest  the  name 
"  Saxon  Rhineland." 


A  THUNDERSTORM  113 

I  saw  my  first  mountain  sunrise,  a  perfect  example 
of  tiie  dramatic  spectacle  of  the  sun-god  charming 
away  the  mists  of  night  and  throwing  upon  sky, 
cloud,  and  earth  ever  new  gradations  of  pure 
luminous  colour.  This  full  reinstatement  of  sun- 
light after  storm  contrasts  in  my  memory  with 
the  partial  and  half-sullen  restoration  of  bright 
light  after  thunder  which  I  once  saw  when 
leaning  over  a  parapet  at  Civita  Castellana, 
near  Rome.  I  looked  towards  Monte  Soracte, 
which  retained,  as  if  in  smouldering  after- wrath 
at  the  impious  assault  of  the  storm,  a  measure 
of  its  sinister  darkness.  Yet  the  conciliatory 
influence  of  the  returning  sunbeams  touched 
and  beautified  the  mountain's  dark  vestment, 
transmuting  it  into  a  robe  of  many  colours,  all 
rich  and  deep-toned,  worthy  of  the  wearer's 
majestic  shape  and  of  its  sacred  renown. 

iNIy  excursion  brought  me  in  touch  with  more 
than  one  party  of  German  fellow-tourists.  I  now 
began  to  feel  more  at  ease  in  speaking  German, 
and  made  full  use  of  my  new  opportunities.  I 
was  rather  pleased  when  a  young  Bohemian  officer 
with  whom  I  had  conversed  expressed  his  surprise 
at  my  behaviour  by  saying  he  did  not  know  that 
an  Englishman  was  so  zugdnglich  (approachable). 
It  has  been  my  habit  to  try  to  show  foreigners 
that  we  are  not  all  stupidly  shy,  or  worse,  bear- 
ishly  stand-offish,  when  confronted  with  foreigners. 
Since  then  I  have  learned  more  from  a  dear  English 
lady,  who  made  it  her  especial  business  when 
walking  with  friends  in  Switzerland  to  stop  and 
talk  with  English  strangers,  persevering  even  when 

9 


114  MY  LIFE  AND  FRIENDS 

the  "  touch  me  not  "  ]:)ristles  would  remain  stiffly 
erect  for  some  time  before  her  genial  and  engaging 
mode  of  accost  had  succeeded  in  forcing  them  to 
relax.  In  these  walks  with  German  tourists  I 
learned,  in  a  lame  fashion  at  least,  to  join  in  tlieir 
profuse  expressions  of  delight  at  each  new  wonder 
in  the  scene.  I  even  caught  a  tepid  English 
warmth  from  the  glow  of  their  Sclncdrmerei.  Yet 
sentiment  did  not  blind  me  to  the  amusing  side 
of  tiie  German's  ways— such  as  his  large 
sightseers'  appetite  for  artificial  waterfalls,  as  we 
passed  on  the  roadside  a  boy  standing  ready  to 
let  on  the  water  of  a  cascade.  Another  outburst 
of  German  sentiment  occurred  when,  walking  down 
to  Plebischthor,  we  heard  the  soft  sounds  of  distant 
harps  coming  from  below,  and,  dravv'ing  nearer, 
saw  seated  by  the  side  of  our  path,  under  an  over- 
hanging rock,  an  aged  pair  of  musicians.  Of 
course  I  did  my  best  to  join  in  the  cries  of  "  Wic 
liebhch  !  "  "  Wie  riihrend  !  " 

"  Bohemia  "  sounded  far  fiom  home,  and  I  had 
at  this  stage  a  new  and  more  lively  sense  of  passing 
into  a  strange  land.  The  feeling  was  quickened  by 
some  sharp  contrasts  between  tlic  racial  type  left 
behind  and  the  new  Czech  type — the  more  swarthy 
complexion  supported  by  a  narrov/er  and  darker 
eye  and  by  heavy  moustaches  and  beards,  and 
the  less  open  and  friendly  glance.  The  "  hundred- 
tov/ered  "  Prague  was  the  first  foreign  city  I  had 
seen  beautified  by  a  sheaf  of  aspiring  pinnacles, 
to  which  the  series  of  tall  statues  of  Virgin  and 
saint  on  the  Karlsbriicke  seemed  to  join  itself,  the 
whole   looking  like   a   masted  town  lying  by  the 


NUREMBERG  115 

river.  It  was,  moreover,  the  first  impressively 
Catholic  city  I  had  seen  where  *'  Madonna  "  is  the 
supreme  lady,  so  that  all  good  citizens  lift  their 
hats  to  her  as  they  cross  the  bridge,  and  where 
the  poor  hang  upon  the  skirts  of  Christian  charity 
at  the  church-doors.  If  the  rather  forbidding 
look  of  the  men  repelled  me  for  a  moment,  I  soon 
succeeded   in   getting   on   good   terms   with   them. 

At  Nuremberg  I  vvt^s  in  time  to  see  the  mediaeval 
town  without  its  big  ceinture  of  modern  buildings. 
The  profusion  of  carvings  in  its  streets  made 
roaming  a  delight,  and  I  became  so  enamoured 
of  the  daintily  peaked  dormer  windows  as  to  try 
to  sketch  them  standing.  Looking  back  on  these 
hardy  experiments,  I  feel  grateful  that  they  were 
not  carried  out  in  a  Prussian  town,  where  I  might 
liave  been  stopped  and  suspected  of  espionage. 
With  the  quaint  Gothic  architecture  of  the  old 
Burg,  the  Lorcnzkirche,  and  the  beautiful  foun- 
tains, there  harmonized  pleasantly  the  costumes 
of  the  Bavarian  peasants. 

On  my  way  from  Augsburg  to  Munich  I  snatched 
a  glance  at  the  Alpine  snow.  Its  pure  unsub- 
stantial whiteness  won  me  as  the  white  wing  of  an 
angel  glimpsed  high  in  heaven  might  have  done  ; 
and,  half  consciously,  my  plan  of  a  Rundreise 
in  Germany  was  exchanged  for  that  of  a  longer 
tour  to  include  the  Alps. 

At  Munich  I  worked  my  hardest  at  sight-seeing. 
Fate,  making  use  of  my  growing  facdlity  in  German, 
threw  me  into  the  hands  of  a  student  of  art  from 
the  University  of  Breslau,  and  I  did  my  best  to 
accommodate  my  habits  to  his,  doing  three  early 


116  MY  LIFE  AND  FRIENDS 

morning  hours  of  tramping  and  inspecting,  on 
a  cup  of  coffee  and  a  roll,  supplemented  by  a 
schoppen  of  "  Bairisch."  My  art-student  drilled 
me  in  a  more  methodical  plan  of  studying  painting 
and  sculpture.  But  the  weather  was  hot,  and 
the  broad  new  streets  with  their  white  buildings 
glared  cruelly  after  the  narrow  shaded  ones  of  old 
Nuremberg.  The  head  of  the  huge  metal  figure 
of  Bavaria  into  which  I  climbed  one  hot  afternoon 
was  as  a  fiery  furnace.  The  long  strip  of  snow 
cornice,  seen  again  or  divined  from  this  furnace, 
haunted  my  inner  vision,  and,  though  fascinated, 
I  longed  to  leave  behind  Pinakothek,  Glyptothek, 
and  the  rest. 

At  length  we  are  off  for  the  Tyrol  and  North 
Italy.  At  Holtzkirche  we  exchange  train  for 
Stellwagen.  There  are  no  seats  on  the  top,  but 
we  somehow  get  leave  to  perch  there,  though 
liable  to  be  swept  off  by  the  branches  of 
cherry  and  apple  trees  which  brush  our  heads. 
The  wilder  rocky  scenery  assures  us  that  we 
have  left  the  glaring  brand-new  city  of  minarets 
well  behind.  The  high  steep-roofed  pattern 
of  German  houses  now  gives  place  to  a  lower 
building  of  wood,  with  flatter  roof  and  deep 
eaves.  We  greet  with  a  child's  laughter  the 
pretty  Tyrolese  costume — the  peaked  dark-green 
hats  gaily  tasselled  and  plumed,  and  the  short 
blue  jackets  above  the  dark  braided  breeches.  A 
delicious  sense  of  coolness  comes  with  the  sight 
of  the  clear  blue  waters  of  the  Tegernsee,  into 
which  there  look  down  wooded  hills  with  lawn- 
like   clearings.     We    have    a    taste    of    old-world 


THE  TYROL  117 

travel  when  we  start  by  post  from  Kreuth  Baths 
at  4  a.m.  en  route  for  another  picturesque  lake, 
Achensee. 

Just  after  crossing  the  frontier  between  Bavaria 
and  Austria  we  come  across  a  phenomenon  (Er- 
scheinung)  which  calls  forth  a  more  than  usually 
enthusiastic  exclamation  from  my  impressionable 
art-student.  It  is  a  veritable  Amazon  modestly 
disguised  as  a  waitress.  She  is  not  only  very  hand- 
some in  face,  but  her  bodily  structure  shows 
admirable  proportions.  Nothing  will  cool  the 
ardour  of  my  inflammable  art-student  but  a  kiss, 
and  the  lady,  with  a  just  perceptible  flush  on  the 
cheek,  submits.  As  her  worshipper  is  rather 
short,  the  lip  greeting  can  only  be  effected  by  his 
standing  upon  a  chair.  The  act  of  worship  is 
carried  out  with  all  due  restraint  amid  a  group 
of  smiling  spectators. 

Our  drive  along  the  banks  of  the  dark-blue 
Achensee  was  made  exciting  by  the  narrowness  of 
our  road,  which  was  squeezed  in  between  the  lake 
and  the  steep  side  of  a  mountain.  A  rapd  descent 
brought  us  to  Innbach  in  the  Innthal,  from  which 
place  we  took  train  to  Innsbruck.  Here  I  felt 
myself  to  be  very  far  from  the  modernities  of 
Munich,  and  among  old-world  monuments,  and 
thrillingly  near  the  Alpine  giants.  From  Inns- 
bruck we  again  took  train  for  Silz,  and  thence 
started  on  our  trudge  up  the  Oetzthal.  The 
wonder  of  the  place  was  enhanced  when,  as  the 
shadows  descended  into  the  narrow  valley,  we 
heard  the  mellow  tones  of  the  "Ave  Maria"  issuing 
from  a  spire,  and  saw  the  women  who  were  bind- 


118  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

ing  up  llic  liax  siiddtMily  piiusi.',  kneel  down  with 
faees  turned  towards  the  ehurch,  and  pray  silently. 

The  Tyrol  in  those  days  was  not  exploited  for 
tourists.  I  find  from  my  notes  that  we  procured 
at  our  fust  inn,  for  the  modest  sum  of  nincpenee, 
a  fine  trout,  an  omelette,  and  a  small  bottle  of  wine. 

The  Oet/thal  is  a  nnnow,  roadless  gorge,  down 
whieh  tumbles  a  noisy  torrent,  the  Oetz,  whieh  doCs 
its  best  to  monopolize  the  valley  by  driving  Uic 
footpath  now  and  again  uj)  the  steep  sides.  Nature, 
in  one  of  her  niore  savage  moods,  seemed  here  to 
grip  us  ;  yet  high  above  the  torrent  and  the  over- 
hanging roeks  we  could  S])y  the  solemn  pines 
bathing  their  summits  in  the  blue,  and,  higher 
still,  the  dazzling  Avhite  shoulder  of  some  snowy 
Jungfrau.  The  series  of  tiny  villages  we  passc-d 
through  seemed  to  be  one  long  church  procession, 
every  v/hitewashcd  house-front  being  decorated 
with  a  rude  fresco  of  the  Madonna  or  with  some 
hieroglyphic  of  the  Saviour. 

At  Heiligkreuz  we  had  to  find  a  night's  shelter 
at  the  cure's  house.  But  for  his  clerical  neck- 
band, his  high  jack-boots,  stubby  beard,  and  rough 
manner  of  accost  would  have  suggested  rather 
the  brigand  than  the  priest.  His  housekeeper, 
in  her  delicate  bodily  frame,  her  blue  eyes,  and  her 
soft  movements,  supplied  a  striking  foil  to  his 
boorish  robustness.  Towards  midnight  I  awoke 
with  sharp  agonizing  pains — probably  the  result 
of  a  foolish  excess  in  drinking  the  cold  water. 
Then  I  learned  how  kindly  a  heart  beat  under 
mine  host's  rough  exterior.  The  nearest  doctor 
was  more  than  ten  hours  off,  so   mine  host  had 


ACROSS   THE  MOUNTAINS  119 

to  tackle  the  sickness.  By  prescribing  eau  sucree 
within  and  hot  fomentations  without,  he  slowly 
wooed  back  my  deranged  internal  organs  to  some- 
thing like  their  normal  manner  of  behaviour.  The 
housekeeper,  he  told  me,  had  undergone  a  mira- 
culous cure  in  ansv/er  to  prayers  to  the  Virgin, 
and  as  she  stole  quietly  in  and  out  of  my  room, 
her  white  face  half  hidden  in  a  shawl,  she  seemed 
to  bear  the  seal  of  one  just  called  back  to  earth 
from  heaven. 

After  two  days  in  bed  I  was  out  again  and  walk- 
ing, alone  this  time,  for  I  had  insisted  on  my  art- 
student's  not  waiting  for  me.  In  the  company 
of  a  monk  and  a  rough  Tyrolese  doctor,  I  managed 
to  reach  Fend,  wlierc  I  enjoyed  a  good  supper  and 
a  prolonged  night's  sleep.  The  next  morning — 
only  three  days  after  the  attack — I  crossed  the 
Hoclijoch  {Jugiim  altum)  with  a  trusty  guide, 
enjoying  my  first  near  view  of  glacier  and  snow. 

Then,  dismissing  my  guide,  not  without  a  shred 
of  fear  behind  m.y  sense  of  liberation,  I  turned  my 
back  on  the  glittering  heights  and  began  my 
descent  to  Meran.  It  was  a  pleasure  to  rejoin 
the  highest  and  most  venturesome  of  the  trees. 
Passing  through  the  pretty,  though  ill-named. 
Valley  of  Sehnalzerthal,  I  reached  the  Valley  of 
Etschthal — that  is,  the  Adige — where  the  vines 
again  appeared.  From  here  I  looked  down  upon 
the  garden  of  Meran,  and  had  a  taste  of  its  heat 
in  summertide. 

Neither  at  fertile  ^leran,  nor  at  the  yet  more 
closely  mountain-girt  Bozen,  to  which  I  journeyed 
by    Stellwagen,    did    I    linger    about    the    enticing 


120  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

arcades  and  fruit-stalls.  I  felt  Italy  coming  to 
meet  me,  and  hurried  on  with  the  Adige  past 
the  famous  church  of  Trent  to  Verona,  and 
my  first  view  of  Italy's  monumental  record  of 
her  past.  I  caught  a  sort  of  afterwave  of  the 
patriot's  angry  shudder  as  I  looked  upon  the  forts 
which  had  recently  made  one  of  the  chief  over- 
awing strongholds  of  the  Austrian  domination. 
I  looked,  too,  upon  the  city's  fair  streets  and 
squares,  where  the  cold,  stately  fa9ade  of  a  palace 
topped  with  white  statues  stands  side  by  side 
with  a  more  picturesque  building  all  aglow  with 
frescoes  on  its  walls  and  coloured  hangings  over 
the  door. 

At  Venice  we  were  subjected  to  quarantine,  all 
our  clothing  having  to  be  unpacked  and  exposed 
to  the  fumee  of  chloride  of  lime.  Then,  in  rich 
compensation,  came  the  rapture  of  gliding  over 
the  watery  streets  in  a  noiseless  gondola.  I  was 
fascinated  by  every  complex  movement  of  the 
supple-limbed  gondolier,  by  every  note  in  his 
strange  musical  cries.  In  those  days,  before  the 
steamer  had  come  upon  the  scene  or  the  ruth- 
less advertiser  had  begun  to  plaster  the"  coloured 
walls  with  his  garish  prints,  the  traveller 
stole  softly  into  Venice  as  into  a  cathedral. 
The  gentle  pace  allowed  one  to  register  in 
memory  the  details  of  each  dainty  fagade, 
church,  and  bridge.  I  felt  the  dream-city  all 
about  me,  entering  into  me  as  if  by  some  finer 
porous  ducts,  and  begetting  in  me  a  whole  new 
rapturous  self. 

As  I  began,  so  I  continued,  a  dreamer  gifted  with 


VENICE  121 

a  somnambulist's  keener  divination  of  what  really 
concerned  me  in  my  world.  One  day  in  a  gondola 
I  met  for  a  moment  the  laughing  face  of  my  art- 
student.  But  as  we  now  found  ourselves  lodged 
at  some  distance  from  one  another,  the  close  com- 
radeship of  Munich  was  no  longer  possible.  So  I 
began,  trusting  only  to  my  guide-books,  to  find  out 
what  is  best  in  art.  The  magic  of  the  city's  coloured 
walls,  from  the  ancient  mosaics  in  San  Marco  up 
through  the  several  schools  of  painting,  gradually 
enthralled  me.  I  would  wander  far  in  quest  of 
some  altar-piece  or  other  treasure,  and  I  do  not 
think  that  I  was  ever  unrewarded. 

The  July  evenings  were  thrilling  experiences. 
The  gay  scene  in  the  large  piazza  brought  me  there 
every  evening.  I  watched  the  different  "  classes  " 
sit  together  under  the  colonnade  sipping  coffee 
or  some  more  cooling  beverage,  and  listening  to 
the  military  band,  sometimes  deigning  to  glance 
at  the  handsome  vendor  of  trinkets  as,  with  a 
most  admirable  restraint  of  manner,  he  would 
insinuate  his  tray  under  their  eyes. 

There  was  an  unmistakable  note  of  jubilation 
in  the  air.  The  uniform  of  the  Italian  musicians 
told  us  what  it  meant.  This  was  the  first  complete 
Venetian  summer  since  the  disappearance  of  the 
Austrian,  and  the  city  was  holding  a  long  festa. 
The  outburst  of  music  was  eloquent  of  a  sense  of 
deliverance,  and  as  I  listened  I  caught  myself 
lapsing  into  a  momentary  hallucination,  and  spy- 
ing the  backs  of  the  last  of  the  white  coats 
disappearing  round  a  corner. 

Outside  the  piazza  the  same  air  ot  festa  meets  us. 


122  M^   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

Under  a  deep  arch  of  the  Canale  Grande  a  gondola 
full  of  men  may  stop  and  sing  a  patriotic  song, 
which  gets  prolonged  and  multiplied  by  rever- 
berations from  the  arch.  At  the  sound  of  the 
singing  other  gondolas  will  pull  up  under  the  arch, 
making  a  pretty  waterlily-like  surface  of  colours 
on  the  water,  while  the  balconies  above  fill  and  add 
new  bouquets  of  colour.  On  the  walls  of  Venice, 
as  of  Verona,  enthusiastic  placards  still  hung 
bearing  the  words  "  Vogliamo  1' Italia  unita  !  " 
and  in  the  windows  of  the  photograph  shops 
caricatures  of  Austria  were  still  exhibited.  In  the 
evening  troops  of  Garibaldian  volunteers  marched 
through  the  streets,  making  a  fine  ado  v/ith  their 
drums  and  fifes.  Nor  did  the  ladies  fall  much 
behind  in  patriotic  demonstrations.  If  there  was 
no  Meredithian  "  Vittoria "  to  give  a  fittingly 
rich  accompaniment  of  song  to  the  hour's  supreme 
gladness,  the  lady  patriots  were  everywhere  to  be 
seen  and  heard.  It  was  a  delight  at  the  end  of 
the  evening  to  Avatch  the  gala  groups  slip  down 
into  their  gondolas,  where  they  made  new  lovely 
flower  patterns  which  repeated  them-selves  in  the 
soft  vibratory  movements  of  the  watcK. 

At  Gottingen  I  had  seen  the  sad  initial  stage 
of  a  war  of  conquest,  the  forcible  annexation  of 
once  free  citizens  to  a  foreign  yoke  ;  at  Venice  I 
saw  what  happily  sometimes  makes  a  jo^^ous 
end  of  such  a  conquest,  the  uprising  of  an 
enslaved  people  and  the  driving  of  the  foreign 
ruler  out  of  the  fatherland.  Henceforth  the 
Austrian  was  to  be  for  me  no  longer  the  un- 
happy, beaten  foe  of  Prussia,  but  herself  a  hard 


VENICE  123 

and  obstinate  usurper,  got  rid  of  only  after  a  long 
struggle  for  liberty. 

In  order  to  enjoy  a  comprehensive  coup  d^csil 
of  the  city,  I  cHmbed,  on  one  of  my  last  evenings 
in  Venice,  the  old  Campanile  (many  years  before 
its  fall),  whence  one  could  look  out  over  the 
islanded  city  and  its  watery  mate,  just  as  the 
old  pilgrim-travellers  used  to  look  out  over  them 
when  waiting  for  tlie  ship  that  was  to  take  them 
on  their  way  to  Jerusalem.  More  than  one 
imaginative  pen  has  described  what  I  saw  there. 

Even  into  this  city  of  delight  there  comes  in 
a  July  night  a  harsh  note — the  buzzing  mos- 
quito, from  whom  a  curtained  bedstead  offers 
but  a  partial  deliverance.  Always  a  lover  of 
the  sea  bath,  I  was  stung  by  the  hot  da^^s  and 
the  mosquitoes'  attacks  into  a  raging  desire  for  a 
"  dip  "  ;  and  in  those  days,  before  the  Adriatic 
had  been  shut  out  from  view  by  huge  hotels 
and  bathing  establishmxents,  the  Lido  offered  a 
glorious  opportunity.  The  thud  of  its  breakers 
upon  the  sand  seemed  to  tell  the  story  of  the 
Bride's  long  bondage  and  of  her  joyous 
deliverance,  as  of  a  ia,ter  Ariadne. 

My  adieu  to  Venice  was  said  later,  on  the  fuller 
accession  of  night,  when  the  stars  came  out  as  if 
in  response  to  an  invita^tion  from  the  lamps 
mirrored  in  the  v/ater  to  dance  with  them  there. 
From  a  favourite  pontine  lingering-place  I  gaze 
into  the  murky  waiter,  above  which  a  feeble  lamp 
scatters  a  sparse  light.  All  is  silenced  now — the 
patriotic  song,  the  laughter  of  the  gay  parties  in 
the  gondolas,  the  last  faint  stroke  of  the  gondo- 


124  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

lier's  oar.  The  rocking  of  the  moored  gondolas 
is  as  restful  as  a  mother's  last  cradling  movement. 
As  I  look  along  the  deep-shaded  canal  and  glimpse 
that  other  bridge  leading  to  the  dungeons,  there 
seems  to  add  itself  to  the  night's  quietude 
another  and  larger  repose,  that  of  the  mighty- 
old  city  sated  at  last  with  conquest  and  power, 
and  hardly  more  than  half  awake  to  those 
prodigies  of  her  art  which  draw  us  visitors  to  her 
watery  ways. 

Whenever  I  look  back  upon  this  unforgettable 
visit  to  Venice,  I  see  her  lying  in  a  golden  mist. 
It  was  the  most  perfectly  festive  hour  of  my  life  : 

When  Time  now  old  was  flying 

Over  the  sunny  seasons  bright  and  fleet. 

I  returned  to  Gdttingen  by  way  of  Milan,  the 
Italian  Lakes,  the  Gotthard,  Switzerland,  and  the 
Rhine.  Travelling  was  still  pretty  slow  in  places, 
and  one  lighted  on  curious  contrasts  between  the 
older  and  the  newer  modes  of  journeying.  In 
going  over  the  Gotthard  I  set  out  from  Magadino 
(at  the  north  end  of  the  Maggiore)  by  voiture 
under  a  full  moon,  and  at  Bellinzona  found  quite 
a  lively  scene  in  the  piazza,  where  three  or 
four  diligences  met,  and  crowds  of  travellers 
mixed  and  got  clamantly  confused  in  searching 
for  their  proper  vehicle.  It  was  half-past  ten 
when  the  Gotthard  diligence  started.  The  noisy 
voices  had  died  down,  and  the  only  sounds  were 
the  rumbling  of  our  coachwheels,  the  tinkling  of 
the  bells  of  the  six  horses,  and  an  occasional 
crack   of  the  whip.      Every  now  and  then  I  got, 


THE   ALPS  125 

as  in  a  lightning  flasli,  a  bright  ghmpse  of  some 
moonlit  vignette  of  dark  ravine  or  shining  rock. 
By  six  o'clock  the  next  morning  our  diligence 
reached  Airolo,  where  I  took  to  my  legs  and  man- 
aged to  do  a  thirty  miles'  tramp  over  the  Gotthard 
Pass,  past  Hospenthal  to  the  Furka  Pass.  All 
this  was  delightfully  primitive ;  whereas  in  the 
hotels  at  Lugano,  Interlachen,  and  other  frequented 
centres  the  crowd  of  tourists  was  more  like  what 
it  is  to-day,  only  that  then  there  was  a  larger 
proportion  of  English  to  Americans,  Germans, 
and  other  people. 

My  introduction  to  the  Alps  was  unforgettable, 
and  ever  since  I  have  kept  up  an  enthusiasm  for 
them,  content  to  look  at  them  from  the  height 
which  perhaps  gives  the  best  pictorial  impres- 
sions, say  8,000  to  10,000  feet.  The  full  enjoyment 
of  the  vast  expanses  of  snow,  ice,  and  towering 
rocks  came,  in  my  case,  only  later.  I  find  in  my 
notes  of  this  first  inspection  of  them  in  the  Tyrol 
and  Switzerland  that,  after  the  first  exciting  view, 
the  bare  altitudes  began  to  look  monotonous  and 
to  take  on  a  dreary  and  almost  crushing  aspect, 
and  I  put  down  this  bit  of  reflection  :  "  How 
much  more  beautiful  is  the  coloured  habitable 
world  than  the  uniform  grey  and  white  world  of 
snow  and  rock.  If  things  were  reversed,  and 
instead  of  living  low  down  we  dwelt  above  the 
summer  snow-line,  what  an  experience  would  be 
an  occasional  descent  into  the  genial  region  of 
vegetation  ! " 


CHAPTER    VI 

BEGINNING    WORK 

On  taking  leave  of  Frau  Heintze,  she  gave  nie  a 
letter  of  introduction  to  her  old  ijensionnaire^ 
Professor  Croom  Robertson.  During  my  stay  in 
Gottingen,  Robertson,  through  the  influence  of 
his  teacher,  Professor  Alexander  Bain  of  Aber- 
deen, and  of  Bain's  friend,  George  Grote,  had  been 
elected  Professor  of  The  Philosophy  of  Mind  and 
Logic  at  University  College.  Nor  v>'as  he  the  only 
member  of  the  college  staff  who  had  stayed  at  my 
pension  in  Gottingen.  Years  later,  when  I  also 
was  a  professor  at  the  college,  I  found  that  Thane, 
our  Professor  of  Anatomy,  had  also  listened  to 
our  good  Frau  Heintze's  stories  of  Weimar  and 
Goethe, 

On  reaching  London  I  called  on  Croom  Robertson, 
who  in  those  days  lived  near  Chalk  Farm.  He 
had  won  the  Chair  over  the  head  of  James  Marti - 
neau,  and  the  victory  might  naturally  have  inflated 
temporarily  the  self-estimation  of  an  Aberdonian 
youth  of  five-and-twenty.  In  fact,  a  certain 
youthful  dogmatism  in  statement  chilled  me 
off  at  first ;  but  he  received  me  civilly  enough ; 
and  later,  especially  after  his  marriage,  we  grew 
to  be  warm  friends. 

126 


CHANGE   OF  PLANS  127 

In  the  summer  I  took  the  M.A.  degree  of 
the  London  University,  and  found  m_yself  unplea- 
santly faced  with  a  high  wall.  To  take  up 
theology  again  was  impossible.  New  experiences, 
the  development  of  wider  interests,  and  deeper 
thinking  over  life's  problems  had  combined  to 
wreck  my  old  aims  and  plans.  I  still  for  a  time 
coquetted  with  the  idea  of  the  ministry,  and  I 
consulted,  among  others,  free-thinking  Noncon- 
formists like  James  Martincau  and  Edward  White. 
But  the  recurring  "  No  !  "  .  from  a  masterful 
voice  within  soon  decided  me  to  abandon  the  idea. 
In  order  to  meet  the  crisis  with  the  minimum 
amount  of  distress  to  my  father,  I  accepted  (in 
18G9)  an  invitation  to  be  classical  tutor  at  the 
Baptist  College,  Pont}/ pool,  the  Principal  of  which, 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Tliomas,  had  become  connected  with 
our  family  by  marriage. 

But  my  thoughts  were  now  turning  else- 
where, and  I  began  to  write  philosophical  articles. 
Through  the  mediation  of  Croom  Robertson  I 
submitted  one  or  tv/o  to  Alexander  Bain,  one  of 
the  examiners  in  philosophy  who  had  awarded 
nie  the  M.A.  Gold  Medal.  Lie  wrote  me  very 
encouraging  letters,  at  the  same  time  proffering 
some  canny  Aberdonian  counsel. 

In  1868  I  married  :  incurring  apparently  no 
serious  risk — as  my  father  was  then  a  wealthy 
man— in  embarking  upon  matrimony. 

In  1869  I  was  recalled  to  my  native  town  to  be 
a  melancholy  witness  of  its  political  demise  and 
burial.  The  Courts  had  decided  that  in  the  elec- 
tions of  the  preceding  year  extensive  bribery  had 


128  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

been  resorted  to,  with  the  result  that  both  the 
Liberal  members,  one  of  them  our  half-idolized 
"  Eothcn,"  were  unseated.  A  Royal  Commission 
was  consequently  appointed  to  make  a  full  in- 
vestigation of  election  practices  in  the  borough 
during  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years.  The  occasion 
was  sad  enough  to  those  who  cared  to  think.  Yet 
it  had  its  amusing  side.  One  felt  the  incongruity 
of  the  judicial  scene — the  assemblage  of  well- 
dressed  ladies,  wearing  as  cheerful  an  expression 
as  if  they  were  out  for  a  morning's  entertainment, 
and  the  three  Commissioners,  two  of  whom,  at 
any  rate,  did  their  best  to  assume  a  solemnity  of 
manner  befitting  a  judicial  inquiry. ^ 

The  revelations,  too,  though  sordid  enough  in 
places,  had  their  comic  features.  It  turned  out 
that  a  considerable  number  of  the  voters,  whom 
from  the  hustings  one  candidate  after  another 
had  addressed  in  flattering  terms,  had  soiled  their 
fingers  by  accepting  a  bribe  or  "  consideration." 
They  tried  to  make  amends  for  their  past  dis- 
honesty by  now  shelling  themselves  out,  so  to 
speak,  in  ample  confession,  describing  to  their 
judicial  interrogators,  among  other  things,  the 
devices  by  which  they  secured  as  high -a  price  for 
their  votes  as  possible.  The  facts  elicited  showed 
that  the  accepting  of  a  bribe  was  a  common  subject 
of  jest  among  these  corrupted  burgesses.  One 
curious  feature  of  this  bribery  was  the  practice  of 
rigorously  keeping  a  voter  to  his  promise  of  support 

^  I  was  told  that  the  third  gentleman  appeared  to  be  less 
interested  in  the  details  of  the  inquiry  than  in  the  ladies  who 
filled  the  long  galleries. 


A  ROYAL   COMMISSION  129 

by  shutting  him  up,  till  he  had  voted,  in  a  room  in 
one  of  the  party  public-houses,  where,  by  obtaining 
ample  allowances  of  beer,  he  would  be  likely  to 
become  still  more  pliant  to  orders.  Into  this  room, 
carefully  darkened,  a  mysterious  stranger  was 
introduced,  whose  function  it  was  silently  to  slip 
the  money  into  the  voter's  hand.  The  element 
of  mystery  was  variously  referred  to  in  the  names 
given  to  this  unlawful  donor  of  coins,  one  of 
which  was  "  The  Man  in  the  Moon."  The  blunt- 
ness  of  conscience,  for  us  of  to-day,  shown  in  this 
traffic  in  votes,  must  be  attributed  to  the  fact  that 
the  practice  had  for  a  century  and  more  grown  into 
a  custom.  Being  a  custom,  how  could  it  be  wrong  ? 
Among  the  features  of  the  sittings  which  specially 
moved  me  was  the  long  examination  of  Arthur 
Kinglake.  Anstey,  the  most  virulent  of  the  cross- 
examiners,  displayed  a  terrier-like  fury  of  per- 
tinacity when,  refusing  again  and  again  to  accept 
the  sworn  statements  of  so  honest  a  gentleman, 
he  returned  to  the  assumption  that  the  candidate 
must  have  had  some  knowledge  of  the  bribery 
carried  on  by  his  agents  during  the  recent  elec- 
tion. In  the  end  the  gross  abuses  of  interrogation 
resorted  to  by  this  too  eager  official,  bent  on 
unearthing  human  corruption  at  all  costs,  were 
fully  exposed  by  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench, 
when  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  said,  "  I  do  not 
remember  ever  in  the  course  of  my  experience  to 
have  heard — or  heard  of— such  a  cross-examination 
as  that  to  which  he  (the  plaintiff)  was  exposed."  ^ 

^  Proceedings,  Court  of  Queen's  Bench.     Queen  versus  Lovi- 
bond,  January  20,  1870. 

10 


ISO  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

My  father  was  among  the  victims  of  these  prose- 
cuting attacks  of  Anstey,  which  were  often  sup- 
ported by  the  Chairman  (Price).  It  so  happened 
that  shortly  before  he  was  summoned  to  appear  he 
had  fallen  from  a  ladder,  and  was  suffering  from 
a  severe  shock.  Anstey 's  fingers  were  eager  to 
pounce  on  so  promising  a  prey  as  the  wealthy 
Liberal  merchant  and  Dissenter.  He  began  by 
doubting  the  validity  of  the  excuse  offered  f(5i*  his 
non-appearance  ;  and  when  at  last  my  father 
came,  much  too  soon  for  his  own  comfort,  he 
brought  to  bear  upon  him  his  most  brutish  prose- 
cuting manner. 

After  reading  this  travesty  of  legal  procedure 
the  spirit  of  rebellion  rose  high  within  me.  Re- 
lations of  father  and  son  had  necessarily  grown 
less  intimate  with  the  years,  with  separation  by 
distance,  and  v/itli  the  divergent  lines  which  my 
develoDment  had  followed.  Here  was  a  chance 
of  shov>^ing  that  my  old  affection  was  still  alive. 
So  I  sat  dov/n  and  wrote  for  a  Bristol  paper  a 
longish  letter  in  which  I  analysed  and  criticized 
the  methods  of  the  inquiry,  as  illustrated  more 
especially  in  Anstey 's  treatment  of  v/itnesses.  The 
Chairman  showed,  I  think,  a  certain  amount  of 
courage  by  reading  my  letter  in  the  Town  Hall. 
But  unfortunately,  instead  of  meeting  my  charge 
of  gross  unfairness  in  the  manner  of  the  inquiry, 
he  made  som.e  irrelevant  remarks  v/hich  implied 
that  I  had  objected  to  its  scope  as  including 
evidence  of  undue  influence. 

The  result  of  the  inquiry  is  familiar  to  everybody 
who  knoYvs  anything  of  our  political  history.     My 


ARTHUR    KINGLAKE. 


To  fare  p.  130. 


LITERATURE  181 

native  town  was  disfranchised.  It  is  no  plea  for 
mitigation  of  her  sentence  that  other  old  boroughs 
ma,y  have  been  as  bad  as  she.  But  it  should  be 
remembered  that  a  certain  number  of  Bridgwater 
men,  among  whom  my  father  was  one  of  the  most 
strenuous,  always  and  consistently  set  their  faces 
against  bribery,  and  used  their  influence  to  keep  it 
out  of  the  elections. 

I  thought  of  the  Commission  proceedings  some 
years  later  when  I  met  Kinglake  in  a  London 
drawing-room.  He  was  now  old  and  deaf,  and 
when  I  told  him  who  I  was,  mentioning  as  gently 
as  I  could  Bridgwater,  I  saw  that  I  was  touching 
a  sore  spot. 

To  return  to  the  narrative  of  my  first  attempts 
at  literary  work.  In  1869  Bain  encouraged  me 
to  offer  a  paper  to  John  Morley,  who  was  at  that 
time  editing  the  Fortnightly  Review.  I  sent  him 
a  psychological  study  of  the  belief  in  free  will, 
and  had  it  returned  with  some  very  agreeable 
words  of  praise.  Growing  bolder,  I  proposed  to 
call  on  him  at  Chapman  and  Hall's  office,  from 
which  he  had  dated  his  letter,  with  a  view  to 
discuss  the  likelihood  of  one  or  two  ideas  of  articles 
simmering  in  my  brain.  To  this  I  received  a 
second  and  more  cordial  letter,  assuring  me  that 
he  would  gladly  serve  any  friend  of  Mr.  Bain's. 
He  added  that  he  was  living  out  of  town,  under 
the  Hog's  Back,  but  that  if  I  could  spare  the  time 
he  would  be  happy  to  put  me  up  for  the  night.  I 
went,  and  with  a  bound  entered  into  a  new  domain 
of  experience.  A  v/ell-appointed  English  country 
bouse,  presided   over  by  a  gracious-looking  lady, 


132  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

and  the  company  and  talk  of  the  most  brilHant 
young  writer  that  Oxford  had  sent  to  London 
for  some  time,  made  the  moments  swell  with 
almost  too  much  delight,  in  which  I  fear  I  forgot 
not  only  my  plainer  belongings  in  Pontypool,  but 
even  my  dear  Gottingen  professors.  I  had  tested 
my  host's  preference  as  to  subjects,  and  I  re- 
turned to  Wales  with  a  tete  montee.  Shortly  after 
I  got  a  letter  from  Morley  accepting  a  paper, 
probably  one  of  the  essays  on  music. 

This  was  in  November  1870.  A  month  later 
I  received  an  interesting  letter  from  Walter  Bagehot 
which  shows  that  I  was  just  now  bent  on  reaching 
the  metropolis.  He  had  stood  as  a  candidate 
for  Bridgwater,  and  my  father  had  supported 
him.  I  had,  I  think,  asked  him  about  my 
chances  of  a  school-inspectorship.  I  was  at  the 
time  keen  about  Forster's  proposed  educational 
"  reforms,"  and  had  recently  lectured  for  the 
Birmingham  League.  Bagehot's  answer  was,  I 
dare  say,  wisely  cautious.  "  The  London  world," 
he  wrote,  "  is  a  very  Darwinian  sort  of  scramble, 
and  every  one  should  accumulate  all  possible 
advantages  who  means  to  survive  and  succeed 
in  it." 

On  the  same  day  that  I  received  Bagehot's 
letter  I  had  another  from  John  Morley,  asking  me 
if  I  cared  to  accept  the  post  of  tutoring  his  step- 
son and  assisting  himself  with  correspondence  and 
proof-reading,  duties  which  would  leave  me  ample 
time  for  writing.  I,  of  course,  jumped  at  the 
proposal,  and  before  the  end  of  1870  sent  in  my 
resignation  to  the  authorities  of  Pontypool  College, 


JOHN  MORLEY  133 

In  exchanging  a  tutorship  in  a  Baptist  college 
for  literary  work,  I  completed  the  rupture  with 
my  old  religious  aspirations  and  associations.  The 
severance  involved  poignant  regrets,  not  only  at 
the  moment,  but  for  many  a  day. 

Lodgings  were  found  for  us  under  the  Hog's 
Back,  in  the  pretty  and  retired  village  of  Comp- 
ton,  which  has  since  become  more  widely  known 
from  associations  with  the  painter  G.  F.  Watts. 
Hither  we  came  one  frosty  day  in  January  1871, 
and  found  a  warm  welcome  from  Morley  and 
his  wife. 

Morley  generously  fulfilled  his  promise  of  help, 
and  I  soon  began  to  write  for  the  Fortnightly  and 
the  Saturday  Review.  He  also  gave  me  his  com- 
panionship ;  and  the  memory  of  talks  with  him 
in  his  house  and  in  rambles  along  the  Hog's  Back 
is  still  one  of  my  cherished  spiritual  legacies  from 
the  past.    • 

Among  the  visitors  that  I  met  <?t  Morley 's  was 
George  Meredith,  who,  of  course,  held  me  spell- 
bound by  his  brilliant  table-talk.  F.  Greenwood 
was  another  guest  on  this  occasion.  We  had  to 
listen  as  best  we  could  while  Meredith  made  merry 
in  his  deliciously  extravagant  manner  over  the 
unlucky  attempts  of  some  nouveau  riclie  to  spread 
a  luxurious  table  and  select  choice  wines.  Our 
host,  shaken  by  laughter  to  the  verge  of  tears, 
had  at  last  to  plead  for  a  pause  in  the  Rabelaisian 
torrent.  It  was  then  that  I  had  the  first  of  many 
walks  with  Meredith.  I  must  have  been  excited 
enough  at  joining  him  and  Greenwood  in  a  tramp, 
yet  all  that  I  can  recall  of  it  is  some  piquant  gossip 


184  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

from  the  realm  of  "  high  hfe  "  that  passed  between 
my  two  companions. 

Morley  was  interested  in  my  experiences  at 
Gottingen,  and  our  talks  touched  such  themes  as 
the  newer  German  philosophy  and  the  recent 
advances  of  Prussia  ;  but  I  fear  I  can  have  given 
Morley  but  little  in  return  for  his  generous  hospi- 
tality. I  remember  that  he  seemed  to  like  ,my 
playing  of  Schubert  and  other  composers,  and 
that  he  praised  my  wife's  singing  of  German 
songs.  We  were,  of  course,  alike  profoundly 
moved  by  the  striking  events  taking  place  on 
the  Continent.  My  sympathies  had  at  first  in- 
clined to  Germany  as  seeming  the  less  aggres- 
sive of  the  two  breakers  of  the  peace.  But  the 
penalties  demanded  by  Bismarck  from  his  con- 
quered foe  induced  a  m.ore  friendly  attitude 
towards  France.  Although  bound  to  France  by 
literary,  and,  I  fancy,  also  by  personal  ties,  Morley 
brought  a  cool  judgment  to  bear  on  these  events, 
recognizing  what  benefit  Europe  might  reap  from 
a  united  and  powerful  Germany.  Meredith's  atti- 
tude tov/ards  the  trend  of  events  was,  I  think, 
that  of  a  saddened  friend  of  France,  restrained 
somewhat,  as  compared  with  the  more  passionate 
advocacy  of  his  friend  Maxse,  by  Morley's  influence.^ 
During  our  quiet  rambles  along  the  Hog's  Back 
we  talked  of  other  things  than  the  Franco- 
German  struggle.  Darwin  had  just  brought  out 
his  "  Descent  of  Man,"  of  which  Morley  wrote  an 
appreciation    in    the   Pall   Mall   Gazette.     All   this 

^  See  Meredith's  letters  to  Maxse  and  his  poem  "  France," 
pubHshed  in  the  Fortnightly  about  this  time. 


PROOF-READING  135 

made  me  feel  as  if  I  were  in  the  innermost  circle 
of  men  of  letters. 

My  work  for  Morley  was  agreeable  enough,  and 
it  left  me  ample  leisure  for  writing.  I  got  to  like 
the  reading  of  proof  sheets,  especially  when  the 
matter  was  a  story  of  Meredith's.  My  experience 
as  proof-reader  interested  me  as  a  psychologist. 
It  made  me  familiar  with  the  pitfalls  that  waylay 
the  unwary  corrector  of  proofs.  I  had  many 
startling  illustrations  of  the  facility  with  which 
one  overlooks  misspellings  and  even  omissions  of 
words  in  reading  the  proofs  of  one's  own  writing, 
where  knowledge  of  the  matter  makes  one  more 
than  usually  independent  of  close  visual  attention 
to  the  verbal  forms.  The  most  remarkable  example 
I  can  recall  of  this  danger  was  the  overlooking 
of  the  impudent  intruder,  a  capital  "  K,"  in 
the  familiar  name  "  Arabian  Nights  "  (printed 
as  "Arabian  Knights").  I  had  passed  this 
"  howler  "  in  three  or  four  readings  of  the  sheet, 
and  only  chanced  to  "  spot  "  it  just  before  send- 
ing off  the  revised  sheet  for  press  :  when,  allowing 
my  eye  to  run  carelessly  down  the  page,  the 
oddness  of  the  look  of  the  "  K  "  arrested  my 
glance.  I  have  often  found  that  this  idle  fashion 
of  looking  over  without  reading  printed  matter, 
either  by  running  down  the  page  or,  better,  by 
following  the  words  from  right  to  left,  and  the 
lines  from  the  bottom  to  the  top,  has  dragged 
into  light  some  skulking  misprint.  Such  indolent 
wandering  of  the  eye  eliminates  the  tendency  to 
focus  attention  upon  meaningy  and  forces  us  to 
concentrate   upon   the   look   of  the   verbal   forms. 


136  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

1  may  add  that  the  "  K  "  in  this  instance  passed 
unchallenged  by  two  friendly  assistants,  one  a 
lecturer  on  English  literature  and  the  other  a 
learned  Cambridge  lady  versed  in  journalistic  work'. 

Before  leaving  my  work  with  Morley  I  had 
launched  out  in  different  directions  of  literary 
activity.  Among  these  were  some  longer  philo- 
sophical articles.  In  the  pages  of  the  Westminster 
Review  (January  1871)  I  tried  to  defend  Mill's 
utilitarianism  against  the  attack  of  John  Grote,  the 
brother  and  philosophic  opponent  of  the  better- 
known  George  Grote.  This  was  followed  by  articles 
on  Free  Will,  Belief,  etc. 

The  Westminster  was  no  longer  the  formidable 
organ  of  earlier  days  when  J.  S.  Mill  and  other 
doughty  champions  wrote  for  it.  The  editor  was 
Dr.  Chapman,  whose  larger  fame  rested,  I  think, 
upon  the  discovery  of  the  therapeutic  value  of 
ice-bags  applied  to  the  spine.  This  frigid  interest 
was  supplemented  by  a  warm  concern  for  litera- 
ture and  young  writers.  It  was  he  who  in  his 
boarding-house  brought  together  George  Henry 
Lewes  and  George  Eliot.  In  my  time  he  did  not 
pay  his  contributors — at  least  not  the  .iledglings, 
— but  the  omission  gave  more  than  one  beginner 
a  chance  of  publicity  which  might  otherwise 
have  been  missed.  He  was  ready,  moreover,  to 
invite  members  of  his  team  to  his  house,  and  I 
remember  meeting  there  in  the  early  seventies 
E.  D.  J.  Wilson,  who  was  for  many  years  on  the 
staff  of  The  Times.  We  talked  over  our  experi- 
ences with  Chapman  when,  twenty  years  later, 
we  again  met  at  the  Weisshorn  Hotel  in  the  Val 


THE  SATURDAY  REVIEW  137 

d'Anniviers.  For  the  Fortnightly  Review  I  wrote 
on  aesthetic  subjects,  such  as  "  The  Beautiful 
Aspects  of  Character,"  "  Musical  Form,"  and 
"  Musical  Expression." 

Under  Morley's  advice  I  supplemented  these 
more  ponderous  studies  by  writing  lighter  articles, 
more  especially  "middles  "  for  the  Saturday  Review. 
He  had  himself  written  for  this  journal  under 
the  editorship  of  Cook,  and  he  spoke  well  of  it 
as  offering  valuable  training  in  the  formation  of 
style.  As  I  look  back  on  my  work  for  the  Saturday , 
which  dealt  with  such  trivial  matters  as  "  Homish- 
ness,"  "  The  British  Hebe,"  "  The  Philosophy  of 
Shopping,"  "  Pathos  of  Pleasure  Seeking,"  "  Cario- 
ling  "  (in  Norway),  I  am  disposed  to  smile ;  so  little 
congruous  does  their  texture  and  tone  seem  with 
those  of  my  later  writings.  But  I  remember 
feeling  at  the  time  rather  pleased  with  them. 
However  slight  their  intrinsic  value,  the  writing  of 
them  was  a  good  discipline  for  these  first  days 
of  apprenticeship.  It  forced  upon  me  the  lesson 
of  simplicity  and  terseness  in  expression  and  of 
touching  subjects  lightly.  It  may  have  favoured 
the  adoption  of  an  unpleasant  fashion  of  the  hour, 
a  superior  and  rather  contemptuous  critical  tone. 
Yet  it  put  me  on  my  guard,  not  only  against  such 
older  blemishes  as  the  indulgence  in  pretty  writing 
and  in  the  sentimental  vein,  but  against  newer  ones, 
such  as  exaggeration  in  statement  and  loose  emo- 
tional extravagance.  Because  of  these  good  services 
I  still  feel  grateful  to  Harwood,  the  editor  of  the 
Saturday,  for  having  so  liberally  opened  its  columns 
to  my  pen.     We  have  since  those  days  developed 


138  MY  LIFE   AND  FRIENDS 

a  manner  of  journalism  very  different  from  that 
of  the  older  Saturday.  Yet  it  may  be  questioned 
whether  the  change  of  manner  is  wholly  a  gain, 
whether  we  have  found  an  equivalent  for  the 
rather  savage  but  very  useful  watchdog  at  the 
gate  of  letters,  from  whose  detective  eye  no  dis- 
guise of  fine  clothes  could  ever  save  the  charlatan. 

To  the  discipline  of  the  Saturday  was  added  that 
of  the  Fortnightly.  Morley's  own  style,  which  had 
already  assimilated  something  of  the  precision 
and  lucidity,  something,  too,  of  the  pointedness 
and  happy  phrasing,  of  the  best  French  writers, 
was  for  me  at  this  stage  a  particularly  valuable 
model.  It  was  just  what  I  needed  for  the  indicating 
and  correcting  of  certain  Teutonisms  in  my  use  of 
language,  due,  no  doubt,  to  much  German  reading 
and  speaking.  Morley,  I  remember,  set  me  reading 
George  Sand,  whom  he  regarded  as  an  excellent 
literary  model.  Another  counsel  of  my  friendly 
mentor  was  to  widen  my  literary  repertoire,  and 
especially  to  try  my  hand  at  biography  and  history. 
I  regret  sometimes  that  I  did  not  follow  the  advice 
of  so  competent  a  guide  ;  but  I  only  made  one  or 
two  excursions  into  this  domain  of  letters,  one  of 
which  was  an  article  on  Herder,  which  Morley 
printed  in  the  early  eighties. 

In  spite  of  this  encouraging  introduction  to 
journalism,  I  decided  to  concentrate  my  energies  on 
scientific  work :  beginning  to  recognize  that  I  was  not 
a  born  or  inevitable  scribbler.  I  worked  slowly, 
and  for  the  most  part  with  a  sense  of  friction.  I 
did,  indeed,  manage,  now  and  again,  when  particu- 
larly fresh,  to  reel  off  a  "  middle  "  at  a  morning 


PSYCHOLOGY  180 

sitting ;  but,  compared  with  such  a  nimble  pen 
as  Grant  Allen's,  not  to  speak  of  Andrew  Lang's 
flying  quill,  mine  was  but  a  poor  jog-trotter.  My 
verbal  memory  was  weak,  and  I  could  not  before 
sitting  down  to  write  think  out  and  retain  in  clear 
consciousness  a  detailed  scheme  of  my  article.  To 
m.e  a  pen  in  the  hand  v/as  as  indispensable  for 
literary  composition  as  to  an  extem.pore  orator 
the  sight  of  a  prepared  audience.  This  weakness, 
aided  by  a  low  degree  of  visualizing  power,  handi- 
capped me  in  an  especial  manner  in  ail  lighter 
descriptive  writing.  I  was  also  one  of  the  severe 
self-critics,  and  could  rarely  be  satisfied  until  I 
had  spoilt  the  look  of  my  page  by  corrections. 

Along  with  this  recognition  of  a  want  of  fluency 
and  of  the  dehghtful  sense  of  speed  in  writing, 
I  experienced  a  deep,  irresistible  bent  towards 
abstract  thinking  ;  and  my  special  leaning  towards 
psychology  forced  upon  me  the  conviction  that  I 
needed  some  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  physio- 
logical processes  that  help  to  condition  the  currents 
of  our  mental  life.  This  subject  was  now  receiving 
attention  in  Germ.any ;  and  though  Wundt  had  not 
yet  founded  his  famous  school  of  Physiological 
Psychology,  the  m^any-sided  savant,  Helmholtz, 
had  Vvdth  excellent  effect  introduced  psychological 
reflections  into  his  epoch-making  works  on  musical 
sensation  and  on  the  processes  of  vision.  Drawn 
by  his  name,  I  conceived  the  plan  of  spending  the 
winter  of  1871-2  in  Berlin. 

My  decision  did  not  at  first  please  Bain,  who  was 
keeping  a  close,  fatherly  watch  upon  my  doings.  But 
in  the  end  he  not  only  fell  in  with  it,  but  arranged 


140  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

to  get  some  advantage  out  of  it  by  inviting  me  to 
do  some  work  for  him  in  Berlin.  About  the  same 
time  Herbert  Spencer  also  proposed  to  give  me 
employment.  He  was  now  planning  out  his 
scheme  of  sociology,  for  which  purpose  he  engaged 
a  few  younger  men  to  collect  pertinent  ethnological 
observations  for  him.  This  offer  I  did  not  accept. 
One  could,  I  thought,  collect  facts  for  a  philosopher 
with  the  lines  of  a  finished  system  in  his  brain  only 
by  becoming  his  whole-hearted  disciple  ;  and  this, 
greatly  as  I  admired  him,  I  certainly  was  not. 

Berlin  had  at  this  moment  been  raised  to  the 
dignity  of  the  metropolis  of  the  new  German 
Empire.  I  anticipated  the  sight  of  the  place  with 
some  emotion.  I  had  paid  two  recent  visits  to 
that  other  capital  which  the  triumphant  German 
army  had  afterwards  besieged  and  bombarded.  One 
was  in  1868  or  1869,  in  company  with  a  Russian 
friend,  Edward  Berens,  whose  acquaintance  I 
had  made  at  Gottingen.  We  were  on  the  top 
("  rimperiale  ")  of  one  of  the  big  Paris  omnibuses 
when  suddenly  Berens  pointed  to  an  open  carriage 
and  said,  "  The  Emperor  !  "  Instantly,  as  from 
some  automatic  habit,  I  raised  my  hat,  and  was 
astonished  to  see  the  Emperor  and  Empress  direct 
their  glance  towards  me  and  acknowledge  my 
salutation.  I  understood  this  immediately  after- 
wards when  I  observed  that  nobody  else  paid  the 
Imperial  pair  any  attention,  and  learned  that 
Napoleon  was  very  unpopular  at  this  time.  My 
second  visit  to  Paris  was  in  July  1870,  when  the 
murmur  of  the  advancing  war-storm  was  distinctly 
audible.     I  was  now  to  visit  the  northern  capital, 


BERLIN  141 

where  the  German  States  were  organizing  a  spec- 
tacular expression  of  that  Imperial  unity  which 
the  success  of  their  arms  had  effected. 

The  city  had  even  then  some  imposing  buildings. 
The  spacious  street  Unter  den  Linden  and  the 
Thiergarten  were  the  frequented  resorts,  and  here 
we  set  about  making  ocular  acquaintance  with 
the  owners  of  familiar  names.  The  tower-like 
figure  of  Bismarck  might  be  seen  stalking  along 
the  primitive-looking  trottoir,  followed  by  a  brace 
of  daring  little  street  urchins  whose  pigmy  stature 
threw  into  relief  the  Chancellor's  six  feet  four 
of  height,  and  who,  sticking  as  closely  as  pos- 
sible to  the  giant's  heels,  skilfully  managed  now 
and  again  to  get  a  saucy  glance  up  at  the  terrible 
enigmatic  face.  At  a  stated  hour — in  the  morning, 
I  think — the  big  moustached  figure  of  the  Emperor 
was  to  be  seen  standing  inside  the  window  of  his 
palace,  to  the  delight  of  his  dear  enthusiastic 
subjects.  In  our  little  pension  we  had  a  peep  into 
the  genuine  Berlin  enthusiasm  for  its  Kaiser.  The 
mother  of  our  hostess,  a  little  wizened  figure  (from 
Posen,  I  think),  would  burst  out  now  and  again  in 
rapturous  praise  of  her  "  little  golden  Kaiser  " 
(mein  goldenes  Kaiser chen).  This  lively  old  lady 
would  pinch  herself  of  what  we  should  call  neces- 
saries in  order  to  go  to  the  theatre,  now  and 
then,  to  see  her  Emperor  idol. 

Court  manners  in  Berlin  still  retained  a  homely 
simplicity,  and  one  of  the  curious  sights  in  the 
city  was  the  noble  form  of  the  Crown  Prince  in 
military  attire,  walking  arm-in-arm  with  the  Crown 
Princess  (our    Princess  Royal)  along    the  trottoir^ 


142  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

like  private  citizens  on  their  way  to  the  market. 
The  first  meeting  of  the  Reichstag  occurred  soon 
after  our  arrival.  The  opening  ceremony  was  a 
brilliant  pageant,  and  it  gave  us  an  opportunity 
of  seeing  Von  Moltke  and  many  other  heroes  of  the 
war  as  they  passed  into  the  building. 

I  seldom  came  into  contact  with  the  military 
caste,  and  only  once  or  twice  noticed  signs  of  the. 
arrogant  spirit  in  which  I  rather  expected  the 
Prussian  officers  to  indulge. 

My  special  work  consisted  in  anatomical  studies 
in  Dubois-Rcymond's  physiological  laboratory 
and  attendance  on  Helmholtz's  lectures,  which 
happened  this  semester  to  be  on  physiological 
optics.  He  was  particularly  kind,  and  soon  gave 
us  the  entree  to  his  house.  It  was  at  this  time 
a  rendezvous  for  distinguished  persons,  not  only 
the  Gelehrte^  but  writers  like  Adolph  Stahr  and 
Fanny  Lewald,  diplomatic  officials  and  others.  I 
remember  Helmholtz  showing  me  a  grand  piano 
which  an  American  manufacturer  had  presented 
to  him  in  recognition  of  his  services  to  the  science 
of  music.  We  sometimes  saw  the  Helmholtzs  at 
the  Opera,  where,  to  my  delight,  Wagner's  operas 
were  frequently  given. 

Other  friends  stole  about  us,  till  we  began  to  feel 
warmly  fenced  in  with  friendships  in  our  cold- 
looking  northern  capital.  I  recall  from  among 
these  the  Von  Pertzs,  to  whom  our  good  English 
friend  Mrs.  Gertrude  Coupland  had  kindly  intro- 
duced us.  Their  children  used  to  play  with  those 
of  the  Crown  Princess.  Frau  von  Pertz  would  tell 
us  of  the  Crown  Princess's  exertions  on  behalf  of 


THE   CROWN   PRINCESS  143 

the  higher  education  of  girls  :  an  innovation  which 
was,  I  beheve,  looked  coldly  upon  by  many  con- 
servative Prussians,  who  suspected  that  their  ideal 
of  the  useful,  submissive  Hausfrau  was  threatened. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  was  told  that  she  offended 
the  traditions  of  the  Prussian  Court  by  introducing 
a  too  homely  English  idea  of  her  m.aternal  duties. 
We  also  saw  much  of  Solly,  the  Lector  on  Enghsh 
at  the  University.  His  wife  was  German,  and  the 
parents  and  children  together  offered  a  delightful 
example  of  a  plain  but  cultured  German  home-life. 

But  our  nearest  and  dearest  friends  were  the 
Lachmanns,  to  whom  our  new  friend  in  England, 
Mrs.  Coupland,  a  sister  of  Mrs.  Lachmann,  had 
given  us  a  warm  letter  of  introduction.  The  family 
consisted  of  a  mother  and  three  young  girls.  The 
young  husband  and  father,  when  giving  promise 
of  brilliant  achievement  in  science,  had  been 
snatched  away  by  death.  The  bereaved  wife  had 
at  once  set  to  work  bravely  both  to  support  her- 
self and  to  educate  her  children  by  organizing  in 
her  rooms  a  series  of  lessons  to  be  given  by  outside 
professors,  and  she  managed  to  win  for  this  nearest 
approach  in  Germany  to  a  private  school  a  number 
of  pupils  from  good  families.  The  children,  whose 
ages  graduated  downwards  from  twelve  years, 
were  the  most  interesting  and  lovable  little  trio  I 
have  ever  chanced  upon.  It  was  always  a  fresh 
joy  to  welcome  at  our  door  the  three  dainty  figures, 
with  their  braided  pig-tails,  tartan  frocks,  and  fur 
tippets  and  turbans,  and  to  hear  the  eldest  begin 
in  a  soft,  tender  voice,  "  Mamma  lasst  Sie  griissen." 

During  my  stay  I  managed  to  see  som.ething  of 


144  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

various  sides  of  Berlin  life.  Besides  the  Opera 
House,  there  was  the  Hoftheater,  where  the  veteran 
Dohring  still  aeted  in  the  great  Shakespearian  and 
other  parts.  I  was  particularly  impressed  by  his 
rendering  of  King  Lear,  and  of  Nathan  (in 
Lessing's  Nathan  der  Weise).  I  sent  an  article 
apropos  of  the  latter  performance  to  the  Saturday^ 
under  the  title  "  Lessing  and  the  Berlin  Stage." 
We  went  to  hear  one  of  LIclmholtz's  popular 
scientific  lectures,  given  before  a  gathering  com- 
parable with  that  of  a  Friday  evening  at  our  Royal 
Institution.  A  memorable  experience  during  our 
stay  in  the  German  capital  was  the  singing  of 
Frau  Joachim,  the  wife  of  the  violinist,  in  a 
performance  of  Bach's  Passion  Music  at  one  of 
the  churches.  I  got  a  certain  insight  into  the 
harder  and  more  strenuous  life  of  the  people  by 
attending  a  meeting  of  the  Social  Democrats,  as 
I  think  the  German  Socialists  were  then  called. 
I  have  the  impression  that  Bebel  was  one  of  the 
chief  speakers.  The  presence  on  the  platform  of 
a  seated  policeman  brought  home  to  me  the  sharp 
difference  between  the  Prussian  and  English  ideas 
of  free  speech.  This  experience,  too,  I  utilized 
by  sending  a  short  account  of  the  meeting  to 
F.  Greenwood. 

The  winter  brought  us  a  long  reign  of  frost 
and  abundant  snow,  and  both  the  Linden  and 
Thiergarten,  as  well  as  the  wooded  heaths  of  the 
environs  of  the  city,  shone  with  a  new  and 
dazzling  beauty.  We  revelled  in  sleigh-driving 
and  in  skating  upon  the  lake  of  the  Thiergarten. 
Here  one  could  look  upon  a  brilliant  social  func- 


RETURN   TO   WORK  145 

tion  and  enjoy  the  new  experience  of  fitting  the 
ringing  strokes  of  one's  skates  to  the  rhythm 
of  music  suppHed  by  a  miHtary  band. 

I  managed  also  during  my  stay  at  Berhn  to  do 
some  heavier  writing.  Morley's  continued  interest 
in  my  work  was  shown  by  a  letter  (dated  April 
1872)  telling  me  that  Herbert  Spencer  and  G.  H. 
Lewes  had  spoken  in  high  terms  of  my  article  in 
the  Fortnightly  on  the  "  Basis  of  IMusical  Sensation," 
in  which  I  embodied  some  of  the  fruits  of  my  study 
of  Helmholtz. 

In  the  autumn  of  1873  I  set  about  stringing 
together  some  papers  for  a  volume.  Friends  were 
very  kind,  and  Bain  and  Morley  wrote  frequently, 
showing  a  continued  interest  in  my  projects.  I 
visited  Morley  when  he  was  staying  at  Tunbridge 
Wells.  On  my  expressing  a  wish  to  see  Oxford,  he 
kindly  gave  me  a  note  of  introduction  to  Thomas 
Fowler,  then,  I  think.  Tutor  of  Lincoln  College. 
I  had  reviewed  Fowler's  two  volumes  on  Logic 
in  the  Fortnightly,  and  he  was  disposed  to  be 
agreeable.  So  I  saw  the  colleges  of  Oxford  at 
the  beginning  of  the  October  term,  when  the 
creepers  are  ablaze,  warming  up  the  cold,  grey 
walls. 

In  the  same  month  I  was  asked  by  Spencer 
Baynes,  the  editor  of  the  "  Encyclopaedia  Britan- 
nica,"  to  contribute  to  the  ninth  edition  a  philo- 
sophical article  on  aesthetics.  Bain  sent  me 
a  characteristic  letter  on  the  theme,  apropos  of 
Spencer's  theory  that  echoes  of  ancestral  enjoy- 
ments enter  into  our  modern  love  of  landscape. 
He  wrote  :  "I  never  can  see  how  so  much  stress 

11 


146  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

should  be  laid  upon  the  enjoyment  side  of  our 
ancestors'  experience,  seeing  that  the  poor  devils 
must  have  had  so  much  of  the  opposite."  During 
Spencer  Baynes'  term  of  editorship  I  wrote  several 
other  articles  for  the  "Encyclopaedia,"  of  which  the 
most  important  were  a  historical  sketch  of  the 
philosophy  of  "  Evolution  "  (v/ritten  in  collabo- 
ration with  Huxley)  and  a  psychological  paper  on 
"  Dreams." 

About  the  same  time  I  was  also  approached  by 
Miss  Catherine  Winkworth  as  to  my  willingness 
to  give  a,  course  of  lectures  on  the  History  of 
Music  to  a  ladies'  class  at  Clifton.  John  IMorley 
had  shortly  before  given  me  a  letter  of  introduc- 
tion to  J.  A.  Symonds,  at  that  time  living  at  Clifton 
in  the  house  of  his  father,  the  well-known  physician. 
It  seems  that  a  movement  had  been  started  there 
for  furthering  the  higher  education  of  women. ^ 
Symonds  took  a  keen  interest  in  it,  and  himself 
gave  lectures  to  the  class.  My  course  was  given 
in  the  spring  of  1874,  and  I  believe  I  Vv^as  bold 
enough  to  essay  some  m.usieal  illustrations  upon 
a  piano.  When  delivering  the  lectures,!  lunched 
with  Symonds  once  or  twice,  and  can  faintly  recall 
the  paternal  home :  the  large  rooms  of  which  were 
covered  with  Italian  paintings  that  may  have 
given  to  the  future  writer  on  Italian  art  his  first 
inspiration.  I  do  not  think  that  he  had  much 
technical  knowledge  of  music,  but  we  talked  in 
his  garden  of  the  analogies  between  tones  and 
colours.       Along    with    this    teaching    work,     the 

'  See  "  Memorials  of  Two  Sisters,  Susanna  and  Catherine 
Winkworth,"  edited  by  Margaret  J.  Shaen. 


SENSATION  AND   INTUITION  147 

aesthetics  of  music  continued  to  occupy  my  mind, 
and  I  published  in  the  Contemporary  (1874)  an 
article  on  "  The  Nature  and  Limits  of  Musical 
Expression." 

My  volume  of  collected  essays  bore  the  rather 
fanciful  title  "  Sensation  and  Intuition."  It  re- 
flected my  two  chief  scientific  interests,  psychology 
and  aesthetics — more  especially  my  interest  in 
the  constituents  of  musical  beauty.  In  all  the 
papers  the  psychological  attitude  and  method  of 
treatment  were  apparent,  even  the  sublime  meta- 
physical problem  of  free  will  being  treated  psj^^cho- 
logically.  I  was  rather  nervous  as  to  the  reception 
of  my  book.  It  v/as  one  thing  to  produce  an 
article,  quite  another  to  publish  so  weighty  a 
thing  as  a  book,  on  which  the  critics  might  be 
expected  to  swoop  down.  But  its  reception  alike 
in  England,  France,  and  Germany  was  amply 
reassuring.  Bain  wrote  a  pretty  full  notice  of  it 
for  the  Fortnightly.  A  reviewer  in  the  Saturday, 
whom  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  get  to  know 
later,  welcomed  my  attempt  to  bring  a  little 
light  to  bear  upon  the  dark  region  of  aesthetics. 
Warm  congratulations  came  later  from  Theodore 
Ribot  in  Paris,  R.  Avenarius  in  Leipzig,  and 
others.  Presentation  copies  elicited  favourable 
opinions  from  Herbert  Spencer,  G.  H.  Lewes, 
and  Charles  Darwin  ;  the  last  writing  with  charac- 
teristic modesty :  "I  have  read  it  with  great 
interest,  and  regretted  that  it  had  not  been  pub- 
lished earlier,  so  that  I  might  have  profited  by 
some  of  the  discussions." 

The    publication    of   this    volume    brought    new 


148  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

proposals    of   work.     William    Minto,    a    pupil    of 
Bain's,  had  just  been  made  editor  of  the  Examiner, 
then,    I   believe,  the   property  of  Lord   Rosebery, 
and  he  asked  me  to  write  for  his  journal,  proposing 
a  revision  of  the  forthcoming   Oxford  Edition  of 
Hume.     Apropos  of  this   offer.  Bain  wrote  telling 
me   of  the   caution    he   had   given   to   Minto   not 
to  be  too  sanguine.     "  Hume  himself  (urged  Bain) 
is  a  stiff  job  (for  a  critic),  but  to  take   him  from 
the    arms    of   the   Hegelians    is    beyond    common 
prudence."       About     the     same    time    G.    Croom 
Robertson    informed    me    that    the     new    Mental 
Science     Review,     finally     christened     Mind    (the 
design  of  which  Bain  had  mentioned  to  me  some 
time   before),    was    to    appear    under    his    editor- 
ship  next  year,   and   he   asked    me   to   contribute 
to  the  first  number.     A  little  later  Ribot  wrote  to 
me   from  Paris  of  his  proposal  to  start   the  Revue 
Philosophique,    and    asked    for    my    co-operation. 
These   recognitions   and   proposals   of  work   made 
me  feel  that  I  had  completed  the  tentative  stage 
of    my   literary    career   and   was    about   to    enter 
upon  the  more  assured  stage  of  regular  work.     The 
arrival  of  a  little  girl  in  our  home  was  an  impres- 
sive reminder  that  the  Wanderjahre  as  well  as  the 
Lehrjahre  were  now  over.     So    we    set    about   the 
weighty    business    of   establishing   ourselves    in    a 
home.     After   in  vain  seeking  a  suitable  dwelling- 
place  in  Hampstead,  we  fell  back  on  the  new  suburb 
at    Harlesden,   not   far   from   Willesden   Junction. 
An   allowance   which   my  father  was  now  making 
to  his   children  enabled  me  to  face  housekeeping 
with  a  certain  composure. 


CHAPTER    VII 

RECUPERATIVE    ITALY 

About  this  time,  owing,  I  fancy,  to  an  undue 
emphasizing  in  Goethe's  well-known  maxim  of 
"  Ohne  Rast,''''  to  the  comparative  disregard  of 
"  Ohne  Hast,''''  I  had  a  nervous  breakdown,  and  my 
father's  generosity  gave  me  the  chance  of  a  longer 
sojourn  in  Italy.  We  set  out  early  in  December 
by  the  beautiful  route  through  the  South  of  France 
and  along  the  Riviera.  The  weather  continued 
bleak  as  far  as  Lyons,  but  there  the  sunshine  already 
seemed  to  have  a  touch  of  southern  warmth. 
Nismes,  Aries,  the  Pont  du  Gard,  Avignon — the 
very  cluster  of  names  still  sounds  like  a  festal 
peal  of  bells  amidst  a  scene  of  warm  colouring, 
with  gleams  of  more  concentrated  light  from 
ancient  marble  and  flowing  river.  We  lingered 
at  Marseilles  to  drink  in  to  the  full  the  first  con- 
sciousness of  being  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean ;  and  again  at  Nice  and  San  Remo,  to 
satiate  our  eyes  on  the  sea's  blue,  edged  with 
glittering  buildings,  palms  and  other  tropical 
growths,  and  guarded  by  watch-towers  and  head- 
lands. Only  at  Genoa  were  we  sufficiently  roused 
from  our  dream-mood    to  attack  the  business  of 

149 


150  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

sight-seeing ;  after  which,  still  clinging  to  the 
magic  coast,  we  lapsed  at  Sestri  Levante  into 
another  delicious  reverie ;  lighting  by  happy  chance 
upon  a  sweet  peasant  boy  whose  quick  sympathetic 
wit  shot  ahead  of  our  broken  Italian  speech  and  onr 
unaccustomed  gesture  language,  anticipating  our 
every  wish.  The  railway  from  Genoa  ended  at 
that  time  at  Sestri,  the  long  stretch  of  tunnel 
with  its  short,  dazzling  openings  to  sunny  sea  wot 
having  yet  been  cut.  So  we  stayed  at  night  at  a 
picturesque  townlet,  and  drove  the  next  day  up 
among  interminable  olive  groves  and  chestnuts, 
and  then  down  to  the  beautiful  Spezzia  Bay. 
After  a  visit  to  the  glorious  piazza  of  Pisa,  we 
made  for  Florence,  where  we  had  arranged  to 
spend  our  Christmas.  Here,  under  cloudy  skies 
and  cold  mists,  we  seemed  to  be  thrust  back  into 
the  bleak  north,  and  the  dismal  experience  decided 
us  to  travel  straight  to  Naples.  The  sound  of 
*'  Roma,"  as  our  trean  pulled  up  at  the  capital, 
sent  a  delicious  shiver  through  the  blood  ;  and  a 
short  ramble  through  the  streets,  with  a  peep  at 
one  of  its  resplendent  fountains,  deepened  our 
sense  of  committing  something  like  a  sacrilege  in 
rushing  past  the  Eternal  City. 

At  Naples  we  lodged  at  an  "  English  pension,^^ 
kept  by  a  Mrs.  Turner,  an  Englishwoman  who 
had  adopted  the  excellent  plan  of  marrying  an 
Italian,  thus  securing  a  standard  of  culinary  art 
for  her  establishment  which  an  English  house- 
keeper might  otherwise  have  missed.  It  stood 
conveniently  near  the  fashionable  gardens  and 
sea-front ;    although,  since  it  ran   at   right  angles 


NAPLES  151 

with  these,  it  was  for  the  greater  part  of  the  day  cut 
off  from  the  sun.  It  stood  behind  the  fashionable 
resorts,  in  a  street  which  was  narrow  and  rather 
dark,  but  a  few  steps  brought  us  to  sunny  Riviera 
di  Chiaia.  It  v/as  a  joy  on  the  first  morning  to 
emerge  from  the  gloomy  vicolo  into  the  full  sun- 
shine of  the  gardens,  v/here  we  soon  dropped  into 
the  "  sweet  "  Italian  mood  of  idly  watching  the 
boats  and  the  fishermen,  and  pretending  to  examine 
the  coral  and  tortoise-shell,  the  cavalli  di  mare, 
and  other  curiosities  vv^hich  the  street  vendors 
displayed  to  us.  Our  quarters  were  comfortable 
enough,  and  as  the  season  of  the  little  "  mxandarini  " 
oranges  had  begun,  v^^e  v/ere  able  to  feast  three 
senses  upon  the  dainty  fruit.  From  some  old 
accounts  I  find  that  the  price  of  jjension  (including 
room)  was  eight  lire  a  day,  or  just  £2  a  week,  a 
figure  not  noticeably  different  from  that  charged 
me  in  Naples  thirty  years  later. 

In  those  days  Naples  had  not  done  much  in 
the  way  of  modern  improvements.  There  was  a 
good  deal  of  squalid  housing  close  to  the  front, 
and  the  magnificent  Corso  Vittorio  Emanuele  was 
in  the  early  days  of  its  construction. 

Our  company  v/as  rather  cosmopolitan,  though 
the  English  contingent  was  well  maintained  by 
the  presence  of  a  General  and  a  Major.  During 
our  stay  at  the  'pension  we  had  an  unpleasant 
experience  of  the  exclusiveness  w^hich  English 
residents  abroad  are  apt  to  show  towards  new 
arrivals  until  these  have  been  properly  inspected. 
A  charming  English  girl  appeared  one  morning 
at  the  breakfast-table,  and  her  arrival  alone  greatly 


152  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

shocked  one  or  two  of  our  ladies.  She  was  one 
of  the  most  refined-looking  women  I  ever  met, 
and  nobody  but  a  very  stupid  or  very  prejudiced 
observer  could  have  failed  to  recognize  in  her  an 
educated  lady.  She  showed,  too,  unmistakably 
the  signs  of  delicate  health.  Yet  it  was  only  affer 
my  wife  and  I  had  begun  to  make  a  friend  of  her 
that  the  English  sticklers  for  the  proprieties  for- 
gave her  for  daring  to  arrive  without  a  chaperon. 
The  foreign  pension  where  the  English  forgather 
offers  a  fine  opportunity  for  studying  their  instinct 
for  "  making  a  home  "  ;  that  is,  for  joining  with 
one  or  two  others — say,  in  a  railway  carriage 
— in  keeping  out  interlopers.  This,  as  I  understand 
it,  is  only  a  modification  of  our  tendency  to  resent 
the  approach  of  an  unintroduced  stranger.  One 
of  the  most  curious  illustrations  of  this  which 
I  have  met  with  was  the  behaviour  of  an 
English  lady  who,  after  an  Italian  gentleman  had 
made  way  for  her  on  the  landing  of  an  hotel  stair- 
case, and  completed  the  civility  by  slightly  raising 
his  hat,  told  a  friend  that  she  had  been  insulted. 

Little  by  little  we  began  to  exert  ourselves, 
visiting  the  marvels  of  the  Museum,  making  ex- 
cursions to  the  heights  behind  the  city,  and  to 
places  along  the  coast,  such  as  Pozzuoli  and  Baiae. 
The  soft,  crumbling  tufa  walls,  the  sulphurous 
springs,  and  Vesuvius  for  ever  disgorging  his 
fumes,  made  us  feel  all  the  time  as  if  we  were  on 
the  edge  of  a  volcano.  We  made  up  for  niggardly 
attention  to  the  giant  by  passing  some  days  at 
Pompeii.  By  this  means  we  not  only  got  to  know 
the  fascinating  streets   and   buildings   of  the   dis- 


POMPEII  153 

interred  city,  but  won  a  fuller  appreciation  of  the 
natural  beauties  of  this  resort  of  well-to-do  Romans. 
The  succession  of  the  hours  unfolded  ever  new 
phases  of  mountain,  sea,  and  glittering  marble 
ruin.  It  was  during  this  visit  to  Pompeii  that  I 
first  made  acquaintance  with  that  curious  product 
of  Western  civilization,  the  American  boy,  who,  in 
this  case,  half  amused,  half  puzzled  us  by  the 
way  in  which  he  assumed  full  authority  over  his 
begetters,  dictating  with  the  assurance  of  a  trained 
courier  their  plan  of  travel. 

After  this  we  made  a  longer  excursion  along  the 
coast  beyond  Pompeii.  At  Sorrento  we  lodged 
at  a  small  hotel,  the  "  Villa  Piccola  Sirena."  With 
more  appropriateness  it  might  have  styled  itself 
"  Piccolo  Vesuvio,"  so  energetically  and  obsti- 
nately did  its  little  metal  stove  and  pipe  pour  out 
their  fumes  upon  us.  We  took  longish  walks  in 
the  neighbourhood,  climbing  the  heights  behind 
the  orange  gardens.  For  companions  we  had  a 
boy  and  a  donkey,  both  thoroughly  Italian  in 
temper,  and  both  bearing  romantic  Italian  names. 
We  were  told  later  that  we  had  run  risks  of 
encountering  brigands  in  these  wild  regions. 

From  Sorrento  we  crossed  to  the  island  of  Capri, 
stopping  at  the  Albergo  Quisisana,  in  the  village 
of  Capri,  some  height  above  the  sea.  The  village, 
if  I  remember  aright,  consisted  of  a  group  of  low, 
flat  or  dome-roofed  houses,  with  odd  little  windows, 
half  Oriental  in  their  physiognomy.  It  was  a 
plain  but  comfortable  albergo,  which  asked  of  its 
guests  the  modest  terms  of  six  lire  a  day.  When 
we  visited  it   the   island  preserved  much    of    its 


154  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

primitive  charm.  There  was  no  large  hotel,  and 
the  number  of  visitors  was  small,  and  consisted 
mostly  of  artists.  The  German  colony  had  not 
yet  overrun  its  recesses.  There  was  no  road,  or 
horse,  in  the  island,  so  that  one  had  to  get  about 
either  on  foot  or  astride  of  a  mule  or  donkey.  We 
had  come  in  the  nick  of  time  for  enjoying  the 
pristine  wildness,  for  the  sound  of  blasting  ad- 
monished us  that  a  "  carriageable  road  "  was  in 
the  making.  The  transportation  of  goods  from 
the  coast  up  the  steep  slopes  was  done  either  by 
mules  or  by  the  finely  grown  Capriot  girls,  who 
bore  surprising  loads  on  their  erect  heads.  One 
of  the  sights  of  Capri  was  the  long  "  scala  "  of  five 
hundred  and  thirty-five  steps,  where  these  hand- 
some, half  Greek-looking  contadine  moved  with  a 
queenly  stateliness  upwards,  or  bounded  joyously 
downwards,  or,  better  still,  rested  and  chatted 
at  some  turning  of  the  Scala,  breaking  into  laughter, 
and  falling  instinctively  into  charming  arrange- 
ments of  form  and  colour. 

The  painters  on  the  island  were,  I  think,  mostly 
French  and  English.  I  remember  being  taken  to 
a  small  hut-like  building  to  see  a  huge  painting  of 
the  Scala  and  resting  girls,  by  a  French  painter, 
and  wondering  how  he  had  managed  to  get  his 
canvas  through  the  little  doorway. 

I  soon  grew  obsessed  with  the  colouring  of  land 
and  sea,  cactus  and  Capriot  maid.  Ten  years  earher 
I  had  discovered  that  I  could,  unaided  by  any 
lessons  in  drav/ing  objects,  make  a  pencil  sketch 
of  a  lake  or  mountain  group.  But  to  reproduce 
colour  was  a  very  different  matter.     I  had — pro- 


CAPRI  155 

bably  at  the  suggestion  of  my  artist  brother-in- 
law — armed  myself  with  a  box  of  water-colours. 
One  day  I  confided  my  longings  to  paint  to  Mrs. 
Anderson,  a  painter  who  was  staying  at  our  hotel. 
She  advised  me  to  try  to  find  out  for  myself  how  to 
lay  on  the  washes.  I  have  often  regretted  that  I 
followed  her  well-intentioned  advice. 

My  health  still  forbade  my  doing  much  head- 
work,  and  I  rigorously  abstained  from  writing 
notes  of  my  travels.  But  to  sit  in  the  morning 
on  the  warm  southern  slopes  of  the  island,  sheltered 
from  the  tramontana,  and  paint  the  Faraglioni 
needle-rocks — not  white  like  our  island's  Needles, 
but  softly  flushed  by  a  sunny  haze — was  hardly 
more  than  a  dolce  far  niente.  And  however  poor 
the  visible  result,  the  methodical  and  detailed 
inspection  involved  helped  to  train  the  eye  to  a  finer 
observation  of  colour. 

We  heard  a  good  deal  of  the  little  art-vv'orld  in 
Capri,  of  the  obstacles  the  painters  sometimes  en- 
countered from  a  parent  or  priest  in  hiring  models, 
and  of  the  occasional  marriage  of  a  painter  with 
a  handsome  contadina  after  the  latter  had  been 
polished  into  the  semblance  of  a  lady  at  some 
school. 

A  party  of  Capriot  peasants  would  sometimes 
come  to  our  inn  to  show  us  their  picturesque 
dances.  Among  these  figured  the  famous  Taran- 
tella, of  which  our  old  travellers  in  South  ItaJy 
have  much  to  tell  us.  Its  wild,  impetuous  move- 
ments were  apt  to  give  the  dancers  an  appetite ;  and 
a  part  of  the  spectacle  was  to  see  them,  on  resting 
from   their   gyrations,    eat    macaroni     in   peasant 


166  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

style,  taking  up  the  long  worm-like  threads  and 
dropping  them  neatly  into  their  mouths — red  wine 
assisting  the  repast. 

After  a  stay  of  a  fortnight,  we  left  Capri  one 
morning  early  in  March  for  Amalfi.  We  took  a 
small  sailing  boat,  rounded  the  Punta  di  Campa- 
nella,  then  hugged  the  coast  of  the  Bay  of  Salerno, 
and  passed  at  an  excitingly  short  distance  the 
famous  Siren  rocks.  The  wind  was  now  from  the 
land  (vento  di  terra)^  and  if  it  failed  us  where 
the  coast-line  rose,  the  sail  would  be  lowered 
and  long  oars  put  out.  The  beauty  of  the 
scenery  held  us  even  after  our  recent  drive  from 
Castellemare  to  Sorrento.  The  passing  of  each 
rocky  promontory  disclosed  a  new  and  exhilarating 
perspective,  the  whole  winding  up  nobly  with  a 
first  sight  of  Amalfi,  climbing  stepwise  up  its 
tiers  of  white  terraces,  while  a  faint  purplish  streak 
beyond  added  a  hint  of  the  coast  of  Calabria.  It 
looked  a  half  Oriental  city,  and  the  impression 
was  deepened  when,  on  approaching  it,  we  saw 
half-naked  men,  with  skin  baked  a  deep  brown, 
unloading  sacks  of  golden  grain  upon  a  wooden 
floor. 

At  Amalfi  we  found  a  room  at  the  "  Albergo  dei 
Cappucini,"  where  we  again  paid  eight  francs  a 
day.  We  seem  to  have  lighted  upon  the  last  bed- 
room, for  it  was  ours  only  after  we  had  accepted 
certain  quaint  conditions.  A  Prussian  Prince  and 
officer,  a  youngish  man  of  imposing  height,  occupied 
a  room  beyond  ours  which  could  only  be  entered 
by  passing  through  our  territory.  The  gentleman 
in  possession    agreed    on  his  part    to  retire  at  a 


DIFFICULTIES   AT   AN   INN  157 

reasonable  hour ;  while  we  on  our  part  undertook 
to  be  out  of  our  room  by  a  certain  hour  in  the 
morning,  which  the  Prince,  German  and  early 
riser  as  he  was,  must,  I  fear,  have  found  anything 
but  reasonable.  All  went  well  until  on  a  certain 
morning  we  overslept  ourselves.  On  consulting 
my  watch,  I  was  dismayed  at  the  hour.  We 
hurried  with  the  dressing,  keeping  an  ear  on  the 
Prince's  door,  which  gave  us  no  relieving  sound. 
Could  he,  too,  have  slept  late,  succumbing,  like 
ourselves,  to  some  heaviness  in  the  air  ?  We 
hastened  to  the  breakfast-room,  and  at  the  en- 
trance confronted  his  genial  face  wearing  a  broad 
smile.  He  met  the  astonishment  we  betrayed 
upon  seeing  him  by  explaining  that  he  had 
managed  to  let  himself  down  from  his  bedroom 
window.  Agreeable  as  he  had  been  before,  this 
amusing  contretemps  made  us  fast  friends.  He 
loved  to  plan  new  delights,  such  as  an  evening 
excursion  by  boat  to  some  cavern,  where  men 
were  engaged  to  light  up  the  place  with  Bengal 
fires.  Altogether,  Amalfi  gave  us  das  schonste 
moment  of  our  travel  days.  My  eagerness  to 
use  the  paint-brush  now  reached  a  climax,  and 
I  found  ever  new  subjects  in  the  buildings  of 
Amalfi,  in  the  dark  archways  of  Ravella  above  it, 
and  in  the  square  towers  on  the  coast  towards 
Salerno. 

At  Salerno  we  stopped  a  day  or  two  to  see  the 
fine  old  cathedral  and  to  visit  Paestum.  The 
long  day's  drive  to  the  famous  Greek  temples  was 
made  the  more  impressive  by  the  circumstance  that 
our    road    was    picketed    with    troops — bersaglieri, 


IBB  MY   LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

I  fancy — while  a  mounted  escort  rode  with  us. 
The  first  view  of  the  temples,  the  warm  tint  of 
the  travertine  deepening  the  sea's  intense  blue, 
excited  a  swift  nascent  movement  of  the  hand, 
which  I  instantly  recognized  as  blindly  directed 
towards  paints  and  brushes.  I  checked  the 
foolish  impulse,  and  was  glad  for  once  to  sink  into 
a  mood  of  passive  contemplation,  noting  how  the 
tints  of  temple  and  prairie  changed  as  we  got  near 
them,  and  how  fresh  notes  of  colour  were  added  by 
the  darls:  buffaloes  and  other  objects  now  growing 
visible.  Under  the  warm  colouring  of  the  midday 
sun  the  dreariness  of  the  desolate,  marshy  region, 
and  of  the  temples  long  abandoned  to  the  elements, 
was  eifectuall}^  hidden.  Thirty  odd  years  later, 
when  travelling  up  by  railway  from  Messina  to 
Naples,  I  recaptured  by  vv^ay  of  a  vivid  contrast 
the  m.agic  of  the  sun-bathed  scene.  The  sun 
liad  just  risen,  but  was  still  invisible,  and  the 
watery  sky  looked  repellently  cold.  The  temples 
had  then  lost  every  vestige  of  their  warm  tint, 
and  their  squat  forms,  seen  from  the  train, 
took  on  the  semblance  of  forlorn  creatures 
crouching    low. 

In  Rome  we  had  an  appartamento  in  the  Via 
del  Babuino.  It  was  on  the  fifth  floor,  and 
we  could  get  air,  as  well  as  views  of  the  stone  pines 
on  the  Pincio,  by  climbing  a  few  steps  to  the  flat 
roof.  Rome  summoned  us  to  work,  and  we  left 
our  idling  behind  us  at  Naples.  But  after  a  week 
or  two  of  sight-seeing,  I  was  called  back  to  England 
by  the  severe  illness  of  my  mother,  and  arrived 
only  in  time  to  follow  her  to  the  grave.     On  the 


ROME  159 

day  of  the  funeral  a  telegram  reached  me  from 
Rome,  sent  off  by  our  friend  A.  D.,  telling  me  that 
my  wife  was  down  with  gastric  fever,  and  bidding 
me  bring  an  English  nurse  with  me.  Our  dear  old 
stand-by,  servant  and  friend,  Ann,  who  had  just 
nursed  my  mother,  was  selected,  and  I  hurried 
back  to  Rome  vnth  her.  She  had  never  been  more 
than  a  few  miles  from  Bridgwater,  and  my  second 
prolonged  anxiety  beyond  the  reach  of  news 
was  lightened  by  watching  her  half-puzzled,  half- 
amused  attitude  towards  her  new  foreign  world. 
I  rem.ember  her  contempt  for  the  paltry  Italian 
soldiers,  who,  of  course,  were  ridiculously  fore- 
shortened when  looked  down  upon  from  our 
housetop. 

These  anxieties  prevented  me  from  making  a 
methodical  inspection  of  Rome,  and  it  was  not 
till  many  years  later,  after  lingering  months 
together  there,  that  it  began  to  wear  the  look 
of  a  familiar  city.  I  worked  hard  in  the  Vatican 
and  other  museums.  It  was  a  transition  time  in 
the  relations  of  the  Papal  to  the  nev/  secular 
government,  and  I  find  that,  among  other  Papal 
permissions,  I  applied  for  one  signed  by  the 
"  Maggiordomo  di  S.  S.,"  allowing  me  to  see  the 
"  Camere  "  and  "  Loggie  "  of  Raphael,  the  Pina- 
coteca  and  the  Sistine  chapel.  The  beautiful  Villa 
Albani  was  then  accessible,  and  I  regretted,  on  a 
later  visit  to  Rome,  to  find  it  so  no  longer.  Among 
the  few  impressions  I  can  still  recall — besides  those 
left  by  the  more  imposing  buildings  and  ruins 
and  gardens — is  the  mess  made  by  the  clearances 
carried  on  in  the  big  piazza  in  front  of  the  central 


160  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

railway  station — which,  however,  led  to  the  exca- 
vation of  some  valuable  antiquities.  I  was,  too, 
duly  impressed  by  some  big  spectacles,  such  -as 
the  illumination  of  the  Colosseum.  Royalty  dis- 
played itself  generously  in  those  first  days  of  a 
united  Italy,  and  the  beautiful  face  of  the 
Principessa  Marguerita  seemed  to  add  a  warmer 
smile  to  those  of  the  marble  princesses  in  the 
Museum. 

As  soon  as  our  invalid  was  strong  enough,  we 
set  out  from  Rome  for  Lake  Como,  stopping  at 
Terni,  Florence,  Bologna,  and  Milan.  We  met  the 
difficulty  of  choosing  between  the  rival  sites  of 
Bellaggio  and  Cadenabbia  by  staying  at  each.  In 
one  of  these  places  I  happened  at  the  lunch-table 
to  hear  of  J.  S.  Mill's  death.  The  announcement 
was  met  by  the  question  "  Vvlio's  Mill  ?  "  to 
which  our  news-bringer  replied  in  a  drawling  voice, 
"  Oh,  don't  ye  know,  he's  the  fellow  that  wanted 
to  upset  the  Constitution."  I  learned  later  from 
Bain  that  I  might  have  called  upon  Mill  at  Avignon 
when  stopping  there  in  the  preceding  December. 
But  after  his  wife's  death  he  was  living  in  great 
retirement,  and  I  had  heard  of  the  molestations 
of  his  privacy  by  the  aggressively  curious.  Of 
another  loss,  a  friend  this  time,  I  also  heard  at  a 
lunch -table  abroad.  It  was  in  a  pension  at  Palermo 
that  an  Englishman  in  the  spring  of  1904  an- 
nounced the  death  of  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  ;  though 
happily  there  was  no  second  Englishman  on  this 
occasion  to  illustrate  the  usual  ignorance  of 
some  of  our  best  and  greatest.  From  Cadenabbia 
we   resumed   our   journey   homewards   by   way   of 


HOMEWARD  161 

Turin  and  the  Mont  Cenis  Tunnel.  So,  for  a  third 
time  within  a  month,  I  entered  what  was  then  the 
only  railway  passage  through  the  Alps,  which, 
however,  this  time  seemed  less  dark  from  the 
removal  of  two  weighty  loads  of  anxiety. 


12 


CHAPTER    VIII 

IN   FULL  WORK 

We  now  settled  at  Harlcsdcn,  a  new,  unsightly 
suburb,  chosen  by  us  as  a  compromise  between  a 
number  of  needs. 

My  literary  work  continued  to  be  a  mixture  of 
the  serious  article  with  a  relatively  light  variety. 
I  followed  up  my  contributions  to  the  Fortnightly^ 
and  added  to  this  valuable  stand-by  the  Con- 
temporary  Review.  The  article  accepted  by  the 
latter  was  a  pendant  to  my  musical  studies.  The 
title,  "  Opera,"  brought  me  a  proposal  from  Charles 
Leland  to  contribute  two  articles  on  "  Opera " 
and  *'  Organs  "  to  an  American  Encyclopaedia 
which  he  was  editing.  The  proposal  tickled  me, 
for  though  I  had  read  on  the  history  of  opera,  I 
had  not  the  slightest  technical  knowledge  of  organs. 
In  addition  to  these  articles  I  wrote  critical  notices 
for  the  Examiner ;  and  I  contributed  to  the 
columns  of  the  Academy,  which  at  this  time  was 
the  most  learned  of  our  weekly  journals,  and  was 
edited  by  Dr.  Appletou.  Among  the  philosophical 
books  which  the  Examiner  sent  me  was  a  couple 
the  reading  and  reviewing  of  which  was  a  par- 
ticular treat.  They  were  both  ethical  disquisitions, 
and    both    original   and   deeply   interesting.      Yet 

162 


THE   DAILY   TASK  163 

together  they  formed  a  striking  contrast,  ahke  in 
point  of  view  and  in  mode  of  treatment  :  I  refer 
to  Henry  Sidgwick's  "  Methods  of  Ethics "  and 
F.  H.  Bradley's  "  Ethical  Studies." 

I  now  found  a  sure  and  more  spacious  opening 
for  my  philosophical  pen  in  Mind,  the  new  philo- 
sophic review,  to  which  I  contributed  pretty  regu- 
larly. Alexander  Bain,  who  had  brought  it  into 
existence,  worthily  followed  up  this  paternal  func- 
tion by  supporting  his  bantling  handsomely  from 
his  own  purse.  He  started  with  the  generous  pro- 
posal to  pay  for  all  contributions,  though  after  a 
time  he  had  to  curb  his  rash  impulse  by  restricting 
the  honorarium  to  critical  notices  of  books. 

Another  journalistic  opening,  offering  scope  for 
a  sort  of  tertiiim  quid  between  the  more  serious 
and  the  lighter  kind  of  article,  was  the  Cornhill 
Magazine.  I  got  to  knov/  the  editor,  Leslie 
Stephen,  and  he  seemed  to  be  interested  in  my 
articles,  the  topics  of  which  ranged  from  a  German 
peasant  romance  up  to  such  grave  themes  as 
pessimism. 

By  this  time  I  had  adopted  a  fixed  plan  for  the 
day's  work.  From  three  to  three  and  a  half  hours 
of  the  morning  w^ere  my  best  hours,  and  these  I 
allotted  to  writing,  while  reading  and  business 
were  relegated  to  what  I  always  found  to  be  a  good 
second  best,  an  hour  or  two  after  tea.  This  left 
me  with  an  hour  of  the  morning  and  the  whole 
of  the  afternoon  for  open-air  exercise,  for  which  I 
had  a  robust  appetite.  By  this  plan  my  health 
was  kept  good,  and  it  was  only  rarely  that  I  had  to 
diminish  the  standard  quantum  of  daily  work. 


164  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

Brought  into  touch  with  a  number  of  fellow- 
workers,  I  no  longer  felt  like  a  solitary  digger  in  a 
mine.  There  was  Croom  Robertson,  a  most  helpful 
colleague,  with  whom  I  had  to  discuss  problems  of 
"  Mind  "  ;  William  Minto,  at  his  pleasant  Examiner 
smoking  receptions  in  the  Strand,  along  with 
Theodore  Watts, ^  Comyns  Carr,  and  other  good 
company.  My  Saturday  Review  work,  too,  brought 
me  new  acquaintances,  including  Frederick  Pollock ; 
and  the  Savile  Club  helped  to  enlarge  my  literary 
and  scientific  circle.  It  was  here,  I  think,  that  I 
must  have  first  got  to  know  that  genial  shepherd 
of  philosophic  students  in  London,  Shadworth 
Hodgson.  And  it  was  the  same  sociable  club 
which  introduced  me  to  W.  K.  Clifford,  the  brilliant 
young  mathematician  and  thinker;  to  F.  Y. 
Edgeworth,  whose  many-sidedness  of  mind  refuses 
to  be  contained  even  under  two  categories ;  as  well 
as  to  other  lovers  of  ideas. 

By  this  time  my  writings  had  given  me  the 
entree  into  houses  where  things  of  the  mind  were 
honoured.  G.  H.  Lewes,  to  whom  I  had  sent  a 
copy  of  my  book,  invited  me  to  the  Sunday  after- 
noon gatherings  at  the  Priory.  Here,  in  addition 
to  the  revered  novelist,  George  Eliot,  I  first  saw 
Darwin  and  other  notabilities.  The  meeting  with 
Darwin  was  a  particularly  agreeable  one  for  me. 
It  was  a  wet  afternoon,  and  I  found  myself  the 
only  guest.  Just  as  I  was  rising  to  go,  the  maid 
entered  and  announced  "  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Darwin." 
Lewes  turned  to  me  and  said,  "  You  must  not  go 
now."  A  quiet  elderly  pair  were  ushered  in. 
»  Afterwards  Watts  Dunton. 


CHARLES   DARWIN  165 

Darwin's  bald  dome  of  a  head,  with  its  deep  curtain 
of  grey  hair  and  a  long  grey  beard  to  match,  deeply 
impressed  me.  The  first  number  of  Mind  had  just 
appeared,  and  Darwin  spoke  in  praise  of  it,  adding 
that  what  he  especially  liked  was  Mr.  Sully's  article 
on  "  Physiological  Psychology  in  Germany."  Lewes 
turned  to  me  with  a  knowing  smile,  and  said  to 
Darwin,  "  Perhaps  you  would  like  to  know  the 
writer  of  the  article."  The  great  man  was  generous 
in  talk,  and  pricked  on,  I  think,  by  a  funny  story 
from  Lewes,  recounted  some  curious  experiences 
of  his  own.  One  was  the  receipt  of  a  letter  from  a 
learned  American,  who  sought  to  demonstrate  that 
the  doctrine  of  Natural  Selection  was  to  be  found 
in  the  Old  Testament.  Another  was  also  the 
reception  of  a  letter,  this  time  from  a  canny  young 
Scotsman.  This  young  gentleman,  having  rather 
hastily  undertaken  the  task  of  expounding  and 
defending  the  Darwinian  doctrine  before  a  debating 
society,  and  finding  himself  out  of  his  depth,  struck 
out  boldly  for  terra  firma  by  writing  directly  to 
Darwin,  asking  him  to  send  him  a  brief  epitome 
of  his  doctrine.  Darwin  seemed  to  enjoy  the 
humour  of  the  thing  almost  as  much  as  his  audience. 
Another  house  where  men  of  science  and  of 
letters  forgathered  was  that  of  Mrs.  Hertz  in 
Harley  Street,  to  which  I  was  introduced  by 
Kegan  Paul,  at  that  time  my  publisher's  reader. 
"  Society  "  was  new  to  me,  and  I  did  not  yet 
shrink  from  the  salon  which  Mrs.  Hertz  held 
on  Sunday  evenings.  I  met  there  a  number  of 
persons  with  awe-inspiring  names,  among  others 
Goldwin  Smith  and  Frederic  Harrison.      But   the 


166  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

crowded  rooms,  with  their  Babel-Uke  confusion  of 
voices,  were  not  much  to  my  Hking.  I  remember 
once,  upon  entering  the  drawing-room,  spying  the 
tall  figure  of  Edmund  Gurney  pinned  by  the  slowly 
moving  pack  of  guests  against  the  wall  in  a 
corner.  I  managed  to  get  to  him ;  but  alas !  we 
were  instantly  discovered  by  our  vigilant  hostess, 
who  cut  short  our  talk  by  bearing  one  of  us  away 
to  some  lady  who  was  "  most  desirous  "  of  making 
his  acquaintance. 

Among  the  visitors  whom  I  met  in  Harley  Street, 
none  gave  me  such  a  thrill  of  excitement  as  Robert 
Browning.  I  only  had  distant  views  of  him,  for 
of  course  he  was  drawn  off  from  the  crowd.  I 
had  seen  him  some  years  before  in  a  Congrega- 
tional chapel  listening  to  the  spontaneous  and 
deeply  moving  poetry  of  the  Welsh  preacher,  the 
Rev.  Thomas  Jones ;  and  the  contrast  of  atmo- 
sphere between  the  Sunday  salon  and  the  chapel 
could  not  but  strike  me.  The  third  time  I  met 
him  was  at  Leslie  Stephen's ;  and  here  again 
the  irony  of  things  planned  it  that  a  revered  poet 
should  present  to  me  a  by  no  means  dignified 
aspect.  He  amused  us  by  recounting  how  one 
afternoon  in  Kensington  Gardens  he  was  chased 
round  and  round  the  Albert  Memorial  by  a  bevy 
of  American  lady  admirers  ;  and  he  follov,^ed  this 
up  by  describing  some  not  particularly  interesting 
spiritualistic  communications  which  a  lady,  re- 
cently widowed,  had  carried  on  with  her  husband. 
I  naturally  thought  of  "  Mr.  Sludge  the  Medium," 
and  the  contrast  brought  up  a  sigh. 

Very  pleasant  were  the  small  dinner-parties  which 


MRS  HERTZ  167 

preceded  Mrs.  Hertz's  receptions.  Our  hostess 
knew  some  of  the  secrets  of  a  recherche  dinner, 
and  used  her  knowledge  in  attracting  to  her  table 
some  of  the  intellectual  lions  of  the  day.  She  was 
herself  a  well-read  woman,  versed  in  French  and 
German  as  well  as  in  English  literature.  She  was 
smiled  at  by  some  as  a  lion-huntress ;  but  she 
seemed  to  me  to  seek  out  distinguished  and  pro- 
mising persons  not  so  much  to  win  for  herself  a 
reflected  glory  as  to  gratify  a  genuine  and  many- 
sided  interest  in  letters  and  science.  On  the  whole 
she  showed  considerable  tact,  though  she  was  once, 
like  Homer,  caught  nodding.  The  occasion  was 
my  introducing  to  her  a  friend  who  came  of  a  family 
distinguished  for  learning.  She  received  him  with 
the  well-intentioned  remark,  "  I  hope  that  the 
family  talent  has  been  transmitted  to  its  youngest 
scion." 

For  some  time  I  had  been  attracted  to  the 
subject  of  modern  pessimism  as  represented  by 
Schopenhauer  and  Von  Hartmann,  and  in  1877  I 
published  a  book  upon  their  theories.  My  tempera- 
ment prepared  me  for  understanding  a  subject 
which  to  most  thinking  Englishmen,  I  fancy,  is 
hardly  more  than  pretentious  nonsense.  Moreover, 
the  Germans'  way  of  stating  the  problem  of  the 
value  of  human  life — making  it  a  question  of  the 
preponderance  of  pleasure  over  pain — attracted 
me,  because  it  could  only  be  solved  by  a  careful 
psychological  analysis  of  our  experience.  I  was 
sufficiently  impressed  by  the  arguments  of  the  new 
advocates  of  pessimism  to  feel  roused  by  it  as  a 
menace,  and  my  book  was  the  result  of  an  effort 


168  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

to  rid  myself  of  the  gloomy  suspicions  which  it 
had  bred. 

Much  to  my  surprise,  I  found,  on  the  appearance 
of  my  volume,  that  a  good  deal  of  curiosity  had 
been  excited  in  England  about  the  subject.  McColl 
of  the  Athenceum,  I  was  told,  had  received  an  Un- 
usual number  of  requests  to  review  my  book.  It 
appealed  to  a  much  larger  audience  than  my 
essays  had  done.  Among  those  who  sent  favour- 
able appreciations  of  it  was  W.  Wundt,  the  veteran 
psychologist,  who  is  still  active  in  Leipzig.  F.  H. 
Bradley  honoured  me  with  a  quite  lengthy  letter 
upon  the  volume,  of  which  he  spoke  in  higher 
terms  than  I  could  have  expected.  But  it  by  no 
means  pleased  all  its  readers.  A  doughty  Swiss 
lady,  a  disciple  of  Von  Hartmann,  sent  as  a  con- 
tribution to  Mind  a  pungent  reply  to  my  attack 
on  her  master.  I  fear  that  this  caused  less  vexa- 
tion of  soul  to  myself  than  to  my  overworked 
friend  Croom  Robertson,  who  wrote  me  that  the 
article  was  written  in  such  queer  English  that  he 
despaired  of  "  licking  it  into  shape." 

One  result  of  the  publication  of  "  Pessimism  " 
gave  me  almost  greater  satisfaction  than  the  com- 
mendatory notices  of  the  book.  Kegan  Paul  told 
me  that  a  man  he  was  interested  in,  who  had  been 
troubled  with  melancholia  and  traces  of  suicidal 
impulse,  showed  about  this  time  a  striking  im- 
provement in  tone  of  mind.  On  Paul's  asking 
him  what  had  led  him  to  adopt  a  more  healthy 
attitude  towards  life,  he  replied,  "  Reading  Sully's 
'  Pessimism.'  "  I  have  wondered  how  many  philo- 
sophic writers  could  say  that  a  book  of  theirs  had 


"  PESSIMISM  "  169 

produced,  among  other  good  effects,  that  of  pro- 
longing a  human  hfe. 

I  followed  up  this  book  with  an  article,  in  which 
I  was  able  to  disclose  more  fully  my  own  attitude 
towards  the  question  of  the  value  of  life.  The 
article  bore  the  title  of  "  Scientific  Optimism," 
and  was  published  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  (1881). 
To  my  ear  the  paean  sung  to  evolution  by  W.  K. 
Clifford  and  other  young  enthusiasts  had  been 
overdone ;  and  I  found  even  Herbert  Spencer's 
attempt  to  construct  an  optimistic  creed  upon  a 
biological  base  a  rather  cold  substitute  for  the 
glowing  optimism  of  the  eighteenth  century.  I 
adopted,  I  fear,  a  hopelessly  sceptical  attitude 
towards  each  of  the  antagonistic  estimates  of  life. 

"Pessimism"  brought  me  more  acquaintances, 
and  I  tried  the  risky  experiment  of  drawing  nearer 
to  them  by  taking  a  house  in  St.  John's  Wood.  It 
was  here  that  I  became  intimate  with  Huxley  and 
his  family.  I  was  at  this  time  writing  a  philoso- 
phical article  on  "  Evolution  "  for  Spencer  Baynes 
of  the  "  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  and  Huxley 
became  my  colleague  in  a  peculiar  way  by  under- 
taking to  write  for  the  "  Encyclopaedia  "  a  biologi- 
cal article  on  the  same  subject.  The  informal 
evening  receptions  by  the  Huxleys  in  Marlborough 
Place  were  among  my  cherished  treats,  carrying 
me  back  in  memory  to  the  homely  reunions  of 
Gottingen  and  Berlin.  What  struck  me  most  on 
meeting  Huxley  was  his  exceeding  gentleness  of 
manner.  Of  the  doughty  combativeness  of  the 
disputant  with  Church  dignitaries  and  others  one 
saw  no  trace  in  his  home  :    on  laying  aside  the  pen 


170  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

he  seemed  also  to  cast  off  his  controversial  armour. 
His  talk  was  pitched  in  a  low  voice  which  could 
woo  even  the  timid.  There  were  only  the  shaggi- 
ness  of  the  eyebrows  and  the  reserves  of  pow6r 
in  the  jaw  and  mouth  to  remind  one  of  his  daring 
assaults  upon  ancient  yet  still  formidable  spiritual 
fortresses.  He  had  something  of  the  modesty  of 
his  friend  Darwin.  I  remember  one  evening  when 
at  the  "  high  tea  "  he  began  to  carve  a  chicken. 
A  lady  at  his  side  remarked  to  him,  "  Ah,  noiv, 
Professor  Huxley,  we  shall  see  how  a  chicken 
ought  to  be  carved,"  to  which  observation  he  re- 
plied, "  My  dear  lady,  anatomists  make  the  worst 
of  carvers."  The  Professor  used  to  amuse  us  by 
serving  up  some  of  his  droll  experiences  as  examiner. 
One  of  these  was  an  answer  to  the  question,  "  Briefly 
describe  the  circulation  of  the  blood,"  which  at 
least  had  the  merit  of  brevity  :  "  The  blood  flows 
down  one  leg  and  up  the  other." 

Another  agreeable  house  that  I  visited  in  this 
neighbourhood  was  Richard  Garnett's.  I  had 
got  to  know  him  at  the  British  Museum,  where 
his  charming  old-world  courtesy  and  his  memory 
for  bookish  things — Avonderful*  alike  in  its  compass 
and  its  orderliness — endeared  him  to  many  readers, 
and  was  especially  welcome  to  so  readily  forgetful 
a  person  as  myself.  I  was  much  in  the  reading- 
room  of  the  British  Museum  in  those  days.  Once 
I  had  the  pleasure  of  calling  Garnett's  attention 
to  Mark  Pattison,  who  stood  looking  bewildered 
at  this  big  gathering  of  London  students,  mostly 
unacademic.  The  Garnetts  were  another  of  those 
genial  and  homely   families   in  which   I  loved  to 


LONDON  NOISES  171 

forget  my  work.  A  happy  chance  once  made  me 
their  guest  for  a  week  in  the  little  Devonshire 
village  of  IMorthoe,  and  we  agreed  that  the  week 
had  made  us  better  acquainted  than  years  of 
hurried  London  intercourse.  Among  younger  men, 
I  got  to  know  abovit  this  time  G.  J.  Romanes,  the 
promising  biologist.  He  was  much  depressed  at 
this  moment  by  the  illness  of  a  beloved  sister, 
which  proved  to  be  fatal.  A  fellow-feeling  drew 
me  to  him,  for  I  myself  had  just  had  to  pay  my 
toll  to  death  by  losing  a  brother  v>'ho  had  been  the 
close  companion  of  my  early  years.  It  was,  I  was 
told,  the  loss  of  this  sister  vvdiich  led  Romanes 
to  brood  on  religious  questions,  and  to  pen  a 
volume  which  he  published  anonymously  under 
the  title  of  "  A  Candid  Examination  of  Theism, 
by  Physicus." 

I  continued  to  work  at  a  fairly  even  pace,  my 
mind  running  on  in  many  directions,  now  upon 
dreams  and  other  illusions,  now  upon  noises ;  but 
I  soon  began  to  feel  that  London,  even  in  a 
sylvan  suburb,  was  not  the  place  for  me.  With  a 
respectable  pov/er  of  concentration  so  long  as  my 
milieu  was  favourable,  I  was  a  "  light  "  worker  in 
the  sense  that  even  small  noises  and  other  inter- 
ruptions had  a  fatally  disturbing  effect  on  my 
til  oughts.  To  me  such  stories  as  that  of  Mrs. 
Somerville's  writing  scientific  books  in  a  room  where 
children  were  at  large,  read  like  the  superhuman 
exploits  of  Greek  and  mediaeval  heroes.  Organ- 
grinders  infested  St.  John's  Wood  (was  it  not 
John  Leach  who  was  tormented  by  them  ?),  and 
they  v>^ere  apt  to  be  unaccommodating  when  asked 


172  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

to  carry  their  music  elsewhere,  especially  if  the 
friendly  face  of  child  or  maid  looked  down  sup- 
portingly  from  a  window.  The  noises  of  London 
began  to  obsess  my  thoughts,  and  I  had  to  write 
against  them,  as  I  had  written  against  pessimism, 
just  to  clear  my  brain  of  a  haunting  worry.  The 
outcome  was  an  article  on  "  Civilization  and  Noise," 
in  the  Fortnightly  Review,  which  won  notice,  and, 
I  think,  approval,  too,  from  George  Meredith. 

The  same  preternatural  susceptibility  to  the  dis- 
tracting influence  of  sounds  was  now  having  a 
bad  effect  upon  my  sleep.  I  was  safe  when  once 
properly  launched  into  a  deep  sleep,  and  some- 
times even  amused  my  family  at  the  breakfast-table 
by  telhng  them  that  I  had  heard  nothing  of  a 
nocturnal  thunderstorm  which  had  made  havoc  of 
their  slumbers  ;  but  during  the  process  of  falling 
asleep  I  was  at  the  mercy  of  absurdly  small  noises, 
which  sufficed,  if  they  were  not  instantly  stopped, 
to  drive  off  sleep  for  half  the  night.  Certain 
voluminous  sounds,  on  the  other  hand,  when  not 
too  powerful,  had  a  soothing  effect  upon  my  aural 
nerve ;  and  more  than  once  in  Switzerland  I  have 
for  the  sake  of  this  lulling  effect  chosen  an  hotel 
with  a  big  waterfall  at  a  suitable  distance. 

In  1878  my  lack  of  sleep  hardened  into  a  habit 
of  insomnia.  I  consulted  Dr.  J.  Hughlings  Jackson, 
who  sent  me  to  the  Swiss  mountains.  He  had 
been  reading  an  article  of  mine  on  "  Dreams  "  in 
the  Cornhill  Magazine,  and  this  interview  was 
the  beginning  of  a  warm  and  lasting  friendship 
between  us.  His  acts  of  kindness  to  me  are 
unforgettable. 


HMIPSTEAD  173 

Warned  by  this  attack  of  insomnia,  I  left  St. 
John's  Wood  and  settled  in  Hampstead,  towards 
which  I  had  long  felt  drawn.  Small  houses  were 
difficult  to  find  near  the  Heath.  But  after  much 
searching  we  discovered  a  cottage  in  the  triangular 
space  known  as  Windmill  Hill.  It  was  very  old, 
the  rooms  were  low,  and  the  floors  uneven  and 
shaky.  But  its  retired  position  behind  a  long  strip 
of  garden  made  it  especially  inviting  to  me.  Here 
I  was  able  to  carry  on  work  with  a  satisfactory 
amount  of  comfort.  No  organ-grinder,  trades- 
man's errand-boy,  or  other  noise-producer  was 
permitted  to  enter  the  garden.  It  looked  down  the 
steep  Holly  Hill,  which  was  flanked  on  one  side 
by  a  high  causeway,  on  the  other  by  arcaded 
storehouses — a  bit  of  Italy  in  London  that 
attracted  the  brush  of  our  local  Italian  artist. 

In  1878  Hampstead  was  still  a  village  detached 
from  London  :  old  inhabitants  continued  to  speak 
of  going  into  the  village,  and  the  morning  bus 
announced  its  destination  as  "  Lun'on."  Yet  the 
builder  was  on  its  skirts,  planning  the  Fitzjohn 
Avenue  and  other  magnificent  roads.  This  neces- 
sitated the  pulling  down  of  queer  little  lanes  and 
courts,  which,  though  they  may  not  have  been  too 
healthy,  added  something  to  the  wrinkled  physiog- 
nomy of  the  old  place.  Well  Walk  had  at  this  time 
more  of  the  look  of  genteel  age,  and  Frognal  still 
enjoyed  its  leafy  privacy.  Commonplace  structures 
like  Cannon  Place  and  Gayton  Road  began  to 
raise  their  heads.  Yet  only  a  few  beginnings  of 
the  impending  changes  had  been  carried  out,  and 
when  we  settled   on   the   Northern   Height   there 


174  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

was  still  much  in  the  old  buildings,  and  in  the  old 
lime  avenues,  too,  to  feed  the  mood  of  dreamy 
musing  on  the  past.  And,  better  still,  the  Heath 
itself  had  hardly  been  touched  by  the  improver ;  so 
that  if  guardians  were  reasonably  permissive,  small 
boys,  in  Kate  Greenaway  designs,  could  have  their 
fill  of  enjoyment,  running  up  and  down  the  sandy 
declivities  where  exposed  roots  menaced  naked 
shins,  and  pretending  to  sail  ships  in  the  shallow 
pools. 

The  Heath  in  those  days  had  fascinating  trea- 
sures for  youngsters,  besides  birds'  eggs  and  black- 
berries. If  you  walked  towards  the  Spaniards 
in  the  evening,  you  might  chance  upon  a  rabbit's 
white  tail  scuttling  away  under  a  bush.  A  little 
farther  past  the  Spaniards  you  might,  in  the  right 
month  and  at  the  proper  dusky  hour,  overhear 
the  low  thrilling  notes  of  a  nightingale.  Late  in 
the  night  those  who  lived  near  Church  Row  might 
hear  the  cry  of  an  owl  that  had  its  eyrie  in  the 
church  tower. 

As  there  was  no  "  tube  "  in  those  days,  Hampstead 
could  not  offer  a  quick  journey  into  the  City  or 
the  West  End.  This  circumstance  helped,  I  think, 
to  kee])  the  suburb  a  resort  of  men  of  letters, 
artists,  and  others  who  wanted  quiet.  These  cul- 
tured Hampsteadians  had  formed  themselves  into 
a  more  or  less  compact  society,  which  kept  aloof 
from  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants.  We  were  at 
once  admitted  into  this  higher  stratum,  and  I 
think  I  managed,  in  spite  of  my  Bohemian  lean- 
ings, to  fit  myself  fairly  v/ell  into  my  nev/  world. 

We  owed  our  rapid  admission  into  this  rather 


CANON   AINGER  175 

close  society  to  the  Charles  Leweses.  I  had  got 
to  know  Charles  at  his  father's  house,  the  Priory, 
and  we  had  met  him  and  his  wife  in  Switzerland 
just  before  we  settled  in  Hampstead.  They  were 
most  kind  in  welcoming  us  and  securing  friends  for 
us,  among  whom  were  Miss  Coats  and  Miss  James, 
who  had  a  beautiful  house  in  Upper  Terrace,  the 
large  drawing-room  of  which  looked  out  upon 
the  Judge's  Walk  and  the  West  Heath.  We  were 
invited  to  delightful  little  dinners  here  ;  and  Canon 
Ainger,  a  friend  of  the  house,  who  lived  a  door  or 
two  away,  would  look  after  the  male  guests,  when 
forsaken  by  the  ladies.  Both  Canon  Ainger  and 
Miss  James  were  lovers  of  music,  and  they  would 
delight  us  by  their  renderings  of  our  favourite 
German  songs.  The  Canon  was  too  serious  a 
person  to  care  for  large  society  gatherings,  and  he 
was  once  caught  by  a  lady  at  an  evening  party 
sitting  on  a  tightly  packed  circular  settee,  his  face 
buried  in  his  hands.  Being  asked  whether  he  was 
unwell,  he  raised  a  woebegone  countenance  and 
explained  that  he  was  just  reflecting  how  happy 
he  had  been  before  he  came  to  the  crowded  party. 
But  with  a  few  kindred  spirits  he  could  be 
jolly  enough.  Once  in  the  Upper  Terrace,  after 
giving  us  a  rather  melancholy  song  of  Schubert, 
he  suddenly  got  up  and,  lowering  his  arms,  as  if 
daintily  to  raise  imaginary  skirts,  executed  a 
series  of  skipping  pas  through  the  whole  length  of 
the  room,  reproducing  with  admirable  exactness 
the  graces  of  a  lady  of  the  ballet.  We  made  much 
of  Canon  Aingei-  in  Harapstead.  His  clever  read- 
ings from  Shakespeare,  in  which  by  skilful  changes 


176  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

in  voice,  pose,  and  expression  he  passed  easily 
from  one  character  to  another,  were  things  not 
to  be  forgotten  ;  and  hardly  less  memorable  were 
his  lectures.  When  staying  with  the  Sidgwicks  at 
Newnham  College,  I  heard  one  of  them  on  Burns, 
in  which  he  succeeded  in  winning  the  testimony 
of  a  Scotch  student  to  the  correctness  of  his 
rendering  of  the   poet's   dialect. 

On  the  Heath  the  Canon  was  one  of  the  familiar 
figures.  There  was  a  touch  of  the  pathetic  as 
well  as  of  the  picturesque  in  the  slight,  stooping 
form,  crowned  by  the  refined  face  and  the  silky 
white  hair.  The  figure  seemed  to  be  created  for 
the  Heath — to  focus  its  spirit,  with  the  melan- 
choly of  its  solitudes  and  the  serenity  of  its 
unobtrusive  life.  He  ought,  I  used  to  think, 
to  have  been  accompanied  in  these  gentle  pere- 
grinations by  his  beloved  Charles  Lamb.  As  it 
was,  he  had  a  meet  companion  in  the  artist 
Du  Maurier,  who  now  lived,  like  Ainger,  but  a 
few  steps  from  the  Flagstaff.  They  were  often  to 
be  seen  together  towards  the  end  of  a  morning 
moving  slowly  across  the  West  Heath.  Sometimes 
Du  Maurier  would  be  accompanied  by  his  wife 
and  young  children,  and  then  we  knew  where  the 
Punch  artist  had  found  some  of  his  models.  They 
would  bring,  too,  the  fine  St.  Bernard,  recog- 
nizably the  "  Chang  "  that  had  also  sat  (or  stood) 
for  Punch.  I  had  met  the  Du  Mauriers  at  the 
Priory,  and  at  Hampstead  we  renewed  a  loose  sort 
of  acquaintance.  He  was  a  teller  of  good  stories, 
among  others  one  which  had  Chang  as  its  hero. 
His  master  was  once  taking  him  to  a  house  of  call, 


CHUMS  177 

when  a  kitten  opposed  itself  to  the  advance  of 
the  giant,  bristhng  with  all  the  manifestations 
of  fierce  wrath.  The  magnanimous  Chang  in- 
stantly went  over  on  its  back,  paws  in  air,  by  way 
of  deprecating  any  hostility  on  his  part,  and  the 
kitten's  rage  was  appeased. 

Some  of  these  early  acquaintances  in  Hamp- 
stead  ripened  into  long  friendships.  There  were 
pleasant  houses  for  Sunday  afternoon  tea  or  supper, 
where  good  talk  and  music  could  be  counted  upon  : 
among  others,  those  of  the  Wedmores,  the  Ewing 
Mathesons,  the  Gilchrists,  the  William  Hills,  the 
Henry  Morleys,  and  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Coupland.  It 
seems  strange  to  me,  in  looking  back  to-day,  that 
we  should  have  been  able  so  soon  after  our  arrival 
in  Hampstead  to  surround  ourselves  with  so  goodly 
a  circle  of  friends. 

Besides  these  friendly  families,  I  had  the  more 
frequent  and  more  prolonged  company  of  one 
whom  I  will  call  my  bachelor  chum.  It  was  he 
who  attracted  me  to  Hampstead,  quite  as  much, 
I  think,  by  the  prospect  of  having  him  as  a  neigh- 
bour as  by  his  praises  of  the  salubrity  of  the 
Northern  Heights.  I  responded  to  his  brotherly 
overtures  by  selecting  for  my  home  a  cottage  only 
a  few  steps  from  his  abode.  We  met  almost 
daily,  now  for  a  short  after-breakfast  walk,  now 
for  a  longer  tramp,  in  which  Stanley  Jevons  might 
join,  and  now  on  a  skating  excursion  to  Hendon 
or  Elstree.  Later  on,  the  bicycle  came  upon  the 
scene,  aiming  a  blow  at  our  unhurried  peregri- 
nations on  foot.  I  used  to  join  him  now  and  then, 
though  knowing  that   I  was  a  sort  of  cog  to  his 

13 


178  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

impatient  wheels.  In  another  bodily  exercise  I 
was  quite  unable  to  join  him — the  early-morning 
dip  in  the  bathing-pond.  Valiant  as  I  was  in 
attacking,  on  a  hot  summer  day,  ice-cold  water 
in  Switzerland  or  Norway,  I  could  not  in  cold 
blood  face  the  early-morning  plunge  in  winter. 

Our  lines  of  study  overlapped  somewhat,  and 
this,  together  with  the  multiplicity  of  his  interests, 
made  conversation  fluent.  His  mind  seemed  to 
be  ever  simmering  with  new  problems,  and  upon 
meeting  him  on  the  edge  of  the  Heath,  he  would 
at  once  put  me  a  poser  of  the  form,  "  If  you  had 
so  much  money  to  invest,  and  the  conditions  were 
so  and  so,  would  you  be  ready  to  risk  it  ?  "  I  was 
amused  at  his  supposing  that  I  might  be  troubled 
by  a  superfluity  of  wealth,  but  did  my  best  to 
answer  his  query.  It  was  delightful  to  know, 
when  starting  for  m^y  morning  view  of  Harrow- 
on-the-Hill,  that  I  should  find  him  somewhere 
near  the  White  Stone  Pond.  I  recognized  his 
cloaked  figure  at  some  distance  moving  very 
slov/ly  with  bent  back,  and  loved  to  startle  him 
out  of  his  fit  of  abstraction,  to  see  him  spring 
upwards  with  something  of  a  bird's  movement 
of  flight,  and  to  hear  his  cheery  outburst,  "  Hallo, 
Sully  !  " 

Although  my  junior,  lie  seemed,  as  the  older 
inhabitant,  to  take  special  care  of  me.  This  was 
due  in  part  to  the  svv^eet  courtesy  of  his  nature, 
for  he  came  from  the  isle  of  hospitality.  x4.mong 
those  delicious  memories  to  which  I  can  return 
again  and  again  v/as  a  week  spent  with  him  in 
his  ancestral  home,  a  summer  week  made  the  more 


LECTURING   AND   EXAMININCx  179 

fragrant  by  his  delicate  attentions.  Propinquity 
no  longer  makes  it  easy  for  me  to  get  possession 
of  his  genial  and  sustaining  comradeship.  Never- 
theless, I  cherish  the  dream  that,  if  ever  I  reach 
the  Elysian  Fields,  I  shall  be  welcomed  once  more 
by  that  sudden  upward  spring  and  that  thrilling 
"  Hallo  !  " 

My  removal  to  Hampstead  coincided  with  a 
notable  increase  of  work.  In  1878  I  v/as  appointed 
Examiner  in  Logic  and  Psychology  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  London,  and  in  the  following  year  Lecturer 
on  the  Theory  of  Education  at  the  Maria  Grey 
Training  College.  Literary  work  was  henceforth 
to  be  supplemented  by  teaching  and  testing  the 
results  of  teaching. 

The  lecturing,  which  I  put  into  the  afternoons 
so  as  to  secure  the  morning  hours  for  writing,  did 
not  trouble  me  much.  My  voice,  it  is  true,  was 
not  strong,  and  had  not  yet  been  methodically 
trained.  But  then  my  classes  w^ere  small,  and 
made  no  heavy  demands  on  it.  The  change  of 
scene,  still  more  the  direct  appeal  to  a  concrete, 
visible  audience,  was  refreshing  after  the  isola- 
tion and  self-absorption  of  the  morning.  I  felt 
the  subtle  power  of  the  sympathy  which  binds 
teacher  and  pupil  when  face  to  face,  compelling 
me  to  note  when  a  fair  head  would  look  up  an 
instant  from  her  notebook  with  a  crease  of  per- 
plexity in  the  brow^,  or  Vv-^hen  her  running  pen  would 
flj^sjill  faster,  as  if  in  haste  not  to  lose  something 
she  thought  good.  I  did  not  v/rite  out  my  lectures, 
but  trusted  to  half  a  dozen  leaves  of  notes  :  the 
skeleton  being  always  rewritten  for  a  new  delivery. 


180  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

The  examining  work  rather  worried  me  at  first. 
I  had  horrid  misgivings  as  to  whether  I  might 
not,  according  to  mood  and  other  variable  condi- 
tions, unknowingly  alter  my  standard.  I  had  to 
test  myself  by  re-reading  the  papers  and  varying 
the  order.  I  soon  found,  however,  that  in  work 
of  this  kind  the  standard  has  for  the  most  part 
a  way  of  taking  care  of  itself— that  one  hits 
somehow  in  each  case  on  a  right  judgment  of 
value  which  sums  up  the  cumulative  results 
of  a  good  many  partial  estimates,  none  of  which 
need  come  into  clear  consciousness  in  the  final 
appreciation.  I  discovered  two  tendencies  to  alter 
the  standard  :  (1)  an  unconscious  raising  of  it 
when  the  same  poor  kind  of  answer  recurred  ad 
nauseam,  especially  if  it  was  a  violent  dragging  in 
of  a  passage  out  of  a  textbook ;  (2)  a  reverse 
tendency  to  lower  the  standard  when,  after  read- 
ing a  number  of  papers,  it  seemed  hopeless  to 
look  for  anything  better.  These  two  tendencies 
appeared,  however,  approximately  to  neutralize 
one  another.  Collaboration  with  other  examiners, 
some  decidedly  stricter  and  others  decidedly  laxer 
in  their  markings  than  myself,  satisfied  me  that 
my  relative  estimates  of  papers,  and  so  the  order 
in  classing  them,  agreed  to  a  reassuring  extent 
with  those  of  my  colleagues.  After  this  I  had 
peace  of  mind. 

I  found  Stanley  Jevons  a  particularly  helpful 
colleague,  and,  as  he  lived  near  us,  acquaint- 
ance soon  ripened  into  friendship  between  the 
families.  He  was  a  valuable  companion,  full  of 
all  sorts  of  knowledge,  gained  not  only  from  books, 


STANLEY  JEVONS  181 

but  from  shrewd  personal  observation.  He  was 
given  to  rummaging  in  bookshops  searching  for 
out-of-the-way  pamphlets,  sometimes  in  most  un- 
promising-looking suburban  quarters.  He  collected 
a  large  number  of  such  papers,  which  he  carefully 
pigeon-holed.  A  common  interest  drew  him  and 
my  chum  together,  and  so  we  made  a  trio  in  many 
a  pleasant  walk  and  skating  excursion. 

The  first  years  of  my  residence  in  Hampstead 
were  saddened  by  the  death  of  my  good  friend 
George  Henry  Lewes,  followed  a  couple  of  years 
later  by  that  of  George  Eliot.  I  had  known 
them  only  a  few  years,  yet  their  departure 
darkened  my  world  for  many  a  day.  About  the 
same  time  death  deprived  me  of  another  friend, 
known  also  for  too  brief  a  time,  the  brilliant 
young  mathematician  and  thinker,  W.  K. 
Clifford.  His  brave  spirit,  supported  by  so  frail 
a  physique,  made  him  the  beloved  of  many. 
His  clever  talk  at  the  Savile  and  elsewhere  made 
his  removal  an  irreparable  loss  to  us.  Leslie 
Stephen  wrote  me  a  sad  letter  just  after  seeing 
Clifford  off  to  Madeira,  for  he  knew  that  he 
should  not  see  his  friend  return. 


CHAPTER    IX 

IN   FULL  WORK   (continued) 

The  years  1879  and  1880  were  anxious  ones  for 
me.  My  father  wrote  that  he  was  unable  to  con- 
tinue my  allowance,  and  shortly  afterwards  he 
lost  the  whole  of  his  fortune.  A  second  child 
had  come  upon  the  scene,  and  I  felt  that  I  must 
work  still  harder.  I  had  to  trouble  my  friends, 
Bain,  Jevons,  and  others,  with  inquiries  as  to 
possible  openings  for  work.  New  lecturing  em- 
ployment came  opportunely.  Croom  Robertson 
helped  to  get  me  appointed  for,  a  year  as 
Lecturer  on  the  Theory  of  Education  at  the  Col- 
lege of  Preceptors,  an  engagement  which  was 
made  permanent  a  year  later.  I  also  gave  a 
series  of  lectures  on  Art  and  Vision  at  the 
Royal  Institution,  where  I  was  bold  enough  to 
essay  some  optical  experiments  for  which  Pro- 
fessor Tyndall  kindly  lent  me  his  apparatus.  I 
was  now  working  at  my  volume  on  Illusions. 
Francis  Galton,  who  had  read  some  chapters  of 
this  book  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine,  wrote  with  a 
charming  modesty  to  say  that  he  had  thought  of 
writing  on  the  subject  himself,  but  doubted  not 
that  I  should  "  not  only  anticipate  all  I  could 
say,  but  say  it  much  better."    Morley  was  installed 

182 


Pholo-] 


GEORGE    CROOM    ROBERTSOX. 


To  face  p.  ISi 


ALEXANDER  BAIN  188 

in  1880  as  editor  of  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  and 
he    asked    me   to   review    books   for   him. 

My  acquaintance  with  Bain  had  steadily  grown. 
I  had  met  him  again  and  again  in  London,  some- 
times by  request  in  the  large  vestibule  of  the 
Athenaeum,  which  we  would  instantly  leave  for 
the  retirement  of  the  adjacent  Park.  His  appear- 
ance was  remarkable.  The  little,  weakly  figure, 
the  curiously  m.odelled  head  and  face,  the  quaint 
arrangement  of  the  hair — thinned  away  over  the 
occiput  and  husbsjided  in  a  long  wisp,  but  allowed 
to  grow  to  an  alm.ost  goat-like  exuberance  on 
the  chin — made  a  striking  ensemble,  to  which 
his  manner  of  talk,  with  its  touch  of  Aberdonian 
accent,  gave  further  piquancy. 

In  the  summer  of  1879  he  invited  me  to  stay 
with  him  for  a  week  in  Aberdeen,  and  was 
particularly  hospitable,  taking  me  for  a  week 
to  Braemar.  His  health  was  anything  but 
robust,  and,  like  Herbert  Spencer,  he  gave  much 
thought  to  it.  Having  early  discovered  that 
his  digestion  was  a  preternaturally  slow  process, 
he  decided  to  live  on  two  meals  a  day,  break- 
fast and  dinner,  with  only  a  cup  of  tea  to 
break  the  long  abstinence.  He  had  found  great 
benefit  from  hydropathic  treatment  and  from 
the  Braemar  air,  a  week  or  a  fortnight's  inhala- 
tion of  which  he  tried  to  secure  every  summer. 
He  was  a  thoroughly  congenial  companion,  and 
would  now  and  then  tell  amusing  stories  about 
Mill  and  other  celebrities  to  the  accompaniment 
of  a  mirthful  falsetto  laugh  and  shakings  of  the 
wee  body. 


184  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

In  1880  Bain  surprised  me  with  the  news  that' 
he  was  resigning  his  Chair.  He  hoped  I  should 
stand  for  the  post.  The  Chair  was  a  Crown 
appointment,  and  the  decision  would  be  made 
by  the  Home  Secretary,  Sir  W.  Harcourt.  He 
further  informed  me  that  Adamson  of  Owens 
College,  Manchester,  was  to  be  a  candidate,  as 
also  W.  Minto,  a  former  pupil  of  his,  who  had 
recently  become  more  closely  connected  with  him 
through  his  engagement  to  Mrs.  Bain's  niece. 
Croom  Robertson,  his  most  brilliant  pupil,  was, 
he  told  me,  too  strongly  attached  to  London 
to  care  to  exchange  it  for  Aberdeen.  Quite 
frank  as  to  his  own  intentions,  he  said  that  he 
wished  to  keep  Adamson  out,  and  to  secure  a 
man  who  would  represent  his  own  school.  He 
would  act  quite  impartially  as  between  Minto 
and  myself. 

I  felt  that,  in  the  circumstances  touched 
upon  above,  I  had  no  option,  and  decided  to 
become  a  candidate.  I  collected  testimonials  from 
Croom  Robertson,  Herbert  Spencer,  Lotze,  Wundt, 
Ribot,  and  others.  The  only  personal  applica- 
tions I  made  were  one  or  two  by  letter.  I 
explained  the  situation  to  Morley,  who  wrote  in 
reply  that  he  was  rather  in  a  fix  about  the  matter, 
as  Minto  was  on  his  staff  at  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette 
office.     Minto  was  elected. 

In  the  next  number  of  the  Spectator  the  appoint- 
ment was  criticized  in  no  sparing  language  by 
the  editor,  Richard  Holt  Hutton,  who  repudiated 
it  as  a  political  "  job."  Stanley  Jevons  and 
others    expressed    to    me    a    similar    view.     Bain, 


BAIN'S   SUCCESSOR  185 

who  was  very  angry  with  Hutton,  wrote  to  me 
giving  his  version  of  the  affair.  He  added  the 
interesting  detail  that  Harcourt  had  consulted 
the  two  Liberal  members  for  Aberdeen,  and  that 
the  election  was  determined  in  the  last  resort 
by  local  preference. 

To  me,  too,  as  also  to  Adamson,  this  bit  of 
Crown  patronage  appeared  to  be  a  transparent 
"  job."  But  I  was  not  heart-broken.  Aberdeen,  I 
was  told,  had  its  unattractive  aspects,  its  asperities 
of  climate,  social  as  well  as  physical,  for  a 
weakly  "Southron."  I  had  done  my  duty  by 
standing,  and  I  sat  down  and  enjoyed  retro- 
spectively the  comedy  of  it  all. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  comic  feature  of 
the  situation  was  the  patent  inappositeness  of 
Minto's  appearance  upon  the  academic  scene.  He 
had  indeed  written  a  book  on  English  Compo- 
sition, a  quite  subordinate  subject  of  the  Chair, 
as  well  as  a  novel,  bearing  a  thunderous  title 
which  might  by  a  loose  thinker  be  said  to  show 
some  "  psychological  insight."  But  those  who 
knew  him — philosophers  and  laymen  alike — had 
laughed  at  the  idea  of  his  competing  with  a 
scholar  like  Adamson,  a  man  of  high  ability  who 
had  devoted  years  of  intense  study  to  the  prin- 
cipal subjects  of  the  Chair.  His  Savile  friends, 
at  any  rate,  had  failed  to  discover  in  his  genial 
wide-roving  talk  a  trace  of  the  philosophic  mind. 

As  between  Minto  and  myself,  the  destinies 
had  woven  things  in  such  a  way  as  to  make 
the  result  seem  almost  a  joke.  When  he  was 
editor    of    the    Examiner    he    had    handed    over 


186  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

all  the  philosophic  books  to  me:  he  being  en- 
grossed in  his  proper  subjects,  politics  and 
literature.  Bain  had  recognized  and  publicly 
praised  my  books  in  so  emphatic  a  manner  as 
to  make  an  impartial  support  of  Minto  any- 
thing but  easy  to  a  conscientious  man.  Morley, 
again,  had  not  only  published  a  number  of  my 
articles,  but,  knowing  us  both  personally,  could, 
one  supposes,  hardly  have  failed  to  catch  a  glimpse 
of  the  amusing  contrast  between  the  two  can- 
didates. Once  more,  Spencer  Baynes — who.  Bain 
told  me,  had  written  a  very  strong  testimonial 
for  Minto,  whereas  he  had  hesitated  before  giving 
me,  as  a  late-comer,  a  rather  meagre  one — had 
emploj^ed  m.e  to  write  philosophic  articles,  such 
as  "  Esthetics  "  and  "  Evolution,"  for  the 
''  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  and  kncv^^  equally  well 
what  v/as  Minto's  special  departrnxcnt. 

It  is,  I  think,  a  fair  deduction  from  the 
facts  that  Minto  could  only  have  secured  his 
academic  backing  on  the  ground  that,  being  a 
mighty  clever  fellow,  a  sort  of  universal  genius, 
a  dry  technical  subject  like  logic  would  come 
as  naturally  to  him  as  any  other. ^  But  one 
doubts  whether  Minto  could  have  arrived  any- 
where near  his  goal — even  had  he  been  bold  enough 
to  enter  for  the  contest — if  there  had  not  chanced 
to  be  at  the  moment  in  the  political  firmament 
so  propitious  a  grouping  of  the  stars.     As  editor 

I  The  way  in  which  a  clever  Scotch  student  used  to  apply 
for  a  Chair  on  almost  any  subject  is  naively  disclosed  in  the 
account  given  by  Bain  in  his  "Autobiography"  of  his  own 
applications  for  Chairs  in  very  unlike  subjects. 


POLITICS   MISPLACED  187 

of  the  Examiner,  and  later  as  member  of  the 
Pall  Mall  Gazette  staff,  he  must  have  been  well 
known  to  English  Liberals,  while  in  Scotland 
he  had  made  sure  of  the  influence  of  the  two 
Aberdeen  members  and  others.  His  election  was 
a  bit  of  good  fortune  secured  by  boldness  of 
grasp. 

Minto's  academic  triumph  suggests  more  than 
one  reflection.  The  serious  mind  might  take  the 
incident  as  a  text  for  a  disquisition  upon  the  mess 
party  politicians  are  likely  to  make  of  it  when 
called  upon  to  decide  such  a  question  as  a 
candidate's  competence  for  teaching  a  highly 
technical  subject  like  logic  or  psychology.  To 
a  less  serious  person  it  might  bring  home  a 
plain  truth  or  two  ;  as  that  when  a  man  wants 
to  marry,  his  will  to  live — or,  to  use  modern 
language,  his  will  to  power — is  apt  to  grow 
extraordinarily  fierce ;  and  that,  as  the  old 
logic  books  taught  us,  the  best  of  philoso- 
phers,  being  but  a  man,   is  a  fallible  creature. 

The  failure  of  my  Aberdeen  venture  did  not 
deter  me  from  making  other  experiments  of  the 
kind.  The  very  next  year  I  became  a  candidate 
for  a  Chair  of  Philosophy  just  founded  in  the 
new  University  College  of  Liverpool.  It  had, 
I  was  told,  been  endowed  by  some  sound  Presby- 
terians, who  Vv^ould  be  specially  concerned  to  secure 
a  "  safe  man,"  and  would  be  the  better  pleased 
if  that  man  combined  with  an  unimpeachable 
orthodoxy  the  virtues  of  a  Scot  and  the  culture 
of  Oxford.  Again  I  forced  myself  to  stand, 
hardly  ignorant  of  the  slenderness  of  my  chances ; 


188  MY  IJFE   AND   FRIENDS 

again  failed  to  be  elected,  and  again  consoled 
myself  with  certain  drolleries  in  the  proceedings. 
What  I  especially  enjoyed  was  the  prejudice 
raised  against  me  on  the  ground  of  my  book 
on  Pessimism.  The  worthy  Presbyterians  appe'Ur 
to  have  argued  that  a  writer  who  chose  such  a 
subject  must  have  had  some  lurking  belief  in  it. 
We  will  hope  that  the  new  lectures  upon  logic 
since  instituted  in  the  city  have  helped  the 
worthy  Liverpudlians  to  demand  a  sounder  argu- 
ment than  one  which  would  go  to  show  that 
an  alienist  who  devotes  himself  to  the  study  of 
mental  diseases  must  be  assumed  to  be  him- 
self  infected  by  them. 

This  was  my  third  shot  at  the  academic  target, 
for  I  had  applied  some  years  earlier  for  the  Chair 
of  Philosophy  in  Trinity  College,  Dublin.  So  I 
judged  it  best  to  cease  pestering  writers  of  testi- 
monials and  worrying  myself  by  further  futile 
attempts.  I  was  too  heavily  handicapped  in 
these  contests.  It  was  bad  enough  to  be  wanting 
in  the  cachet  of  the  proper  sort  of  "  University 
man  "  :  it  was  quite  fatal  to  be  burdened  in 
addition  with  the  disqualification  of  not  being 
the  representative  of  an  "  orthodox  "  school  of 
philosophy. 

I  was  not  downhearted  under  these  rebuffs : 
knowing  that  I  could  reach  men  by  my  pen  if 
not  by  my  voice.  Just  at  this  moment  the 
value  of  the  pen  was  impressed  upon  my  mind  by 
the  fate  of  a  young  writer  who  had  produced  an 
elaborate  philosophical  treatise,  of  which  I  was 
able  to  say  some  encouraging  words  in  a  review. 


BOOKS   ON   PSYCHOLOGY  189 

My  modicum  of  praise  was  all  that  the  poor  fellow 
got,  and  not  long  afterwards  I  heard  that  the 
general  indifference  had  so  preyed  upon  his  mind 
as  to  shorten  his  life. 

My  volume  on  "  Illusions  "  appeared  just  after 
the  futile  academic  experiments.  Among  others, 
Wundt  wrote  to  me  expressing  satisfaction  with 
the  book,  more  especially  with  the  treatment  of 
illusions  in  the  narrower  sense  along  with  ana- 
logous errors  of  memory,   etc. 

I  now  gave  a  new  turn  to  my  writing.  Having 
managed  to  obtain  a  fair  amount  of  lecturing, 
which  was  increasing,  why,  I  asked,  should  I 
not  m.ake  myself  still  more  independent  of  the 
University  authorities  by  becoming  a  teacher 
through  my  books  ?  Bain's  works  on  psy- 
chology, which  for  many  years  had  been  the 
onty  accessible  textbooks  upon  the  subject,  were 
not  particularly  well  adapted  to  the  needs  of 
the  general  student,  while  for  those  who  were 
studying  the  subject  as  teachers  they  were 
practically  useless.  Students  and  others  had 
urged  me  to  write  a  handbook  on  the  subject ; 
and  I  may  not  have  been  indifferent  to  the 
prospect  of  challenging  Bain's  lengthy  mono- 
poly of  the  field.  The  work  would  be  hard, 
of  course — textbook-writing  must  at  best  be 
largely  hack-work ;  and  I  found  it  yet  harder 
than  I  had  anticipated.  To  have  your  every 
step  dogged  by  the  doubt  "  Is  this  absolutely 
necessary  for  students  ?  "  was  a  most  disagree- 
able experience.  Corrections  and  rewritings  of 
whole  sections,    and   even   of  chapters,   made   the 


190  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

work  a  worrying  and  fatiguing  task.  Such  was 
the   genesis   of  the    "  OutHnes   of  Psychology." 

I  knew  what  I  was  doing  by  embarking  upon 
this  textbook- writing.  The  subjects  that  still  drew 
me  most  powerfully,  aesthetics  and  descriptive 
writing,  would  have  to  be  neglected,  and  what- 
ever lightness  of  touch  I  had  succeeded  in 
acquiring  would  probably  disappear. 

The  writing  of  the  "  Outlines  "  took  two  or 
three  years.  Its  success  more  than  fulfilled  my 
expectations.  Students  from  Ireland  and  other 
parts  v/rote  to  thank  me  ;  and  even  philosophers 
like  F.  H.  Bradley  sent  me  very  agreeable  words 
of  recognition.  Croom  Robertson  wrote  face- 
tiously of  young  women  who  were  to  be  seen  in 
the  Park  hugging  the  massive  volume.  Grant 
Allen  brought  it  down  with  him  to  Aldeburgh, 
where  v>^e  were  fellow-guests  of  our  friend  Edward 
Clodd,  and  dilated  upon  its  merits.  I  knew  I 
ought  to  be  pleased,  and  did  my  best  to  feel  so. 

But  my  onerous  task  was  not  yet  -^completed. 
An  alarming  message  came  from  my  New 
York  publishers.  The  Copyright  Act  between 
England  and  America  had  not  yet  come  into 
operation ;  and  they  told  me  that  the  "  Out- 
lines "  had  been  pirated  and  issued,  with  no  change 
save  the  addition  of  a  few  more  references  to 
American  books  on  education,  as  a  psychology 
for  teachers.  They  urged  me,  if  I  wished  to 
secure  royalties  in  America,  to  prepare  at  once 
a  new  edition  of  my  book  with  fuller  sections 
on  the  application  of  psychology  to  education,  and 
with  a  new  title.     I  did  this,  writing  as  rapidly 


LECTURES   AT   CAMBRIDGE  191 

as  I  could  ;  and  so  "  The  Teacher's  Handbook  of 
Psychology  "  came  into  being.  I  paid  for  this  bit 
of  writing  against  time  by  an  obstinate  attack 
of  writer's  cramp ;  but  this  second  textbook  had, 
both  in  England  and  in  America,  a  larger  sale 
than  the  hrst. 

My  mode  of  publication  brought  me  into 
unusually  close  touch  with  the  printer.  I  feel 
guiltily  sure  that  m.ore  than  once  I  tried  the 
patience  of  Mr.  Thomson,  of  the  Aberdeen  Uni- 
versity Press,  by  clamouring  for  proofs.  Yet 
so  gentle — almost  maternally  gentle — was  he 
towards  me  that  we  never  came  near  a  quarrel. 
He  just  suffered  my  complaints,  and  in  a  short 
time  I  began  to  understand  him,  and  to  know 
how  good  a  friend  he  had  been  to  me  ;  after 
which  our  relations  were  of  the  most  amiable 
kind,  and  I  had  the  pleasure  of  being  his  guest  both 
at  his  London  club  and  in  his  house  on  Deeside. 

Hard  pressed  by  the  writing  of  textbooks, 
I  nevertheless  made  a  not  wholly  unsuccess- 
ful effort  to  maintain  my  hold  on  other  kinds 
of  work.  About  this  time  I  was  asked  to 
examine  for  the  University  of  Cambridge  and 
for  Owens  College,  Manchester.  The  publication 
of  my  books  on  psychology  helped  to  procure 
me  new  lecturing  work,  both  in  London  and  in 
the  provinces.  A  particularly  interesting  engage- 
ment was  a  course  of  lectures  at  the  new  Women's 
Training  College  at  Cambridge.  An  amusing  ex- 
perience hangs  in  my  memory  on  the  name  of  this 
college.  After  one  of  the  lectures  the  lady  prin- 
cipal of  the  college  asked  me  to  come  and  have  a 


192  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

talk  with  her  students.  One  of  them  asked  me 
what  was  meant  by  a  passage  in  a  book  which  she 
read  out.  I  did  not  myself  for  the  moment  quite 
catch  the  point  of  the  sentence,  and  I  asked  her 
where  she  had  found  it ;  whereupon,  with  just  a 
glimmer  of  triumphant  laughter  in  her  eyes,  -:She 
instructed  me  that  it  was  from  my  own  "  Hand- 
book." I  ought,  no  doubt,  to  have  felt  ashamed 
at  having  my  weakness  of  memory  exposed  in 
this  way.  But  the  fun  of  it,  which  instantly 
captured  my  audience,  caught  me  too,  and  I 
joined  heartily  in  the  laughing  chorus.  The  in- 
cident illuminated  me  further  as  to  my  propen- 
sity, born  perhaps  of  the  literary  habit,  to  rid 
myself  of  ideas  that  I  had  fixed  in  print. 

I  still  managed  to  do  a  certain  amount  of 
lighter  penwork,  persevered  with  reviewing,  and 
much  enjoyed  reading,  and  writing  a  notice  of, 
Leslie  Stephen's  "  Science  of  Ethics  "  for  the  Pall 
Mall  Gazette ;  which  service  brought  from  Stephen  a 
warm  epistolary  recognition.  In  this  same  letter 
he  told  me  that  he  was  giving  up  the  editorship 
of  the  Cornhill,  and  so  I  knew  that  the  pleasantest 
stadium  of  my  literary  activity  was  at  an  end. 
James  Payn,  into  whose  hands  the  magazine 
now  fell,  was  not  likely  to  consider  proposals 
so  unpractical  as  an  article  upon  pessimism,  or 
upon  Spinoza.  He  did,  indeed,  print  one  of 
my  little  hors  cVceuvres,  the  account  of  an  adven- 
ture on  a  Norwegian  glacier,  and  he  gave  me 
some  excellent  literary  advice ;  but  after  that 
the  ill-matched  editor  and  contributor  tacitly 
agreed  to   part  company. 


THE   NINETEENTH  CENTURY  193 

While  plodding  at  the  "  Handbook "  I  man- 
aged to  publish  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  and 
other  magazines  three  or  four  papers  upon  the 
Psychology  of  Genius  (its  precocity,  relation  to 
insanity,  etc.).  Up  to  this  time  my  relations 
with  editors  had  been  particularly  happy.  Now 
I  was  to  have  my  single  passage  of  arms 
with  one  of  these  formidable  officials.  Although 
I  had  seen  but  little  of  the  man,  my  work  for 
James  Knowles,  the  editor  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  had  run  smoothly  enough  :  I  had 
given  him  my  name  for  his  list  of  supporters 
when,  after  a  dispute  with  Strahan  (the  publisher 
of  the  Contemporary  Review),  he  started  that 
periodical.  On  talking  one  day  with  Romanes 
about  his  recently  published  book,  "  Mental 
Evolution  in  Man,"  he  made  the  suggestion  that 
I  should  write  an  article  upon  it ;  which,  he 
thought,  Knowles  would  probably  accept  for 
the  Nineteenth  Century.  I  wrote  to  Knowles 
proposing  the  article,  and  he  agreed  to  take  it, 
provided  I  left  him  free  as  to  the  date  of 
publication.  To  this  I  replied  that  I  was  fully 
prepared  to  give  him  a  "  reasonable  margin  " — 
"  reasonable  "  to  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of 
the  fact  that  the  article  would  be  on  a  new  book 
which  had  been  out  long  enough  to  secure  more 
than  one  review.  As  Knowles  did  not  answer 
this  letter,  I  assumed,  rather  weakly  perhaps, 
that  it  would  be  all  right.  The  article,  entitled 
"  Is  Man  the  Only  Reasoner  ?  "  was  duly  set 
up  in  type  ;  but  it  did  not  appear  for  over  a  year. 
I  had  spoken  to  Romanes  about  the  delay,   and 

14 


194  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

he  had  asked  Knowles,  once  at  least,  when  it  was 
to  be  pubHshed.  Soon  after  I  had  received  the 
proof,  Knowles  sent  me  a  cheque  for  the  article, 
a  proceeding  which,  I  was  told,  he  adopted  when 
a  contributor  grew  impatient.  I  felt  distinctly 
uncomfortable  in  this  new  situation.  My  pre- 
vious dealings  with  editors  like  John  Morley  ^and 
Leslie  Stephen  had  not  prepared  me  for  such 
treatment.  I  knew  that  Romanes  and  Knowles 
were  "  friends,"  and  I  suspected  that  Knowles 
had  accepted  the  article,  primarily  at  least,  to 
please  Romanes.  But  further :  my  article  was 
anything  but  a  laudation  of  the  more  original 
part  of  the  book,  which  tried  to  build  an  evolu- 
tional bridge  over  the  gap  between  animal 
and  human  intelligences.  Had  the  editor,  I 
asked  myself,  assumed  that  my  proposal  im- 
plied that  I  was  prepared  to  accept  and  praise 
Romanes'  book  ?  I  could  not  but  think  it  likely, 
and  felt  a  real  chagrin  on  realizing  how  danger- 
ously near  I  had  come  to  joining  in  a  bit  of 
log-rolling. 

About  the  same  time  I  wrote  an  article  for  an 
American  Review  on  the  connection  between 
imaginative  writing  and  dreaming — a  subject  I 
was  no  doubt  led  to  think  about  by  a  talk 
I  had  recently  enjoyed  with  R.  L.  Stevenson  at 
Skerryvore.  I  gathered  a  good  deal  of  material 
from  novelists  of  various  countries.  These  per- 
sonal testimonies  were  chiefly  remarkable  for 
their  wide  diversity.  At  one  extreme,  Paul  Heyse 
wrote  that  he  had  derived  many  of  his  motives, 
both    scenes    and    incidents,    from    his    dreams ; 


DREAMING  AND   IMAGINING  195 

whereas  at  the  other  extreme  W.  D.  How  ells 
insisted  in  the  strongest  terms  that  "  there  is 
no  parity  betv/een  the  dream-fiction  and  the 
thought-fiction — the  involuntary  and  the  volun- 
tary." Between  these  cases  comes  a  writer 
like  T.  Hardy,  who,  while  sharing  with  R.  L. 
Stevenson  the  ability  to  "  alter  the  development 
of  a  dream  to  something  else,  if  I  object  to  it, 
precisely  as  in  writing  a  story,"  had  not  made 
use  of  dreams  in  fiction ;  and  Henry  James, 
who,  though  a  constant  dreamer,  sees  people, 
things,  places,  when  imagining  them,  much  more 
clearly  thrai  when  dreaming  of  them.  Taking 
these  facts  along  with  R.  L.  Stevenson's  well- 
known  experiences,  one  is  led  to  infer  that  there 
are  two  pretty  clearly  marked  types  of  novelist. 
Hov/ell's  attempt  to  make  all  fiction  "voluntary  " 
activity — in  the  stricter  sense  of  the  word — will 
not  do  in  face  of  Stevenson's  account  of  how 
the  little  people,  unknown  to  him,  do  all  the 
weaving  work. 

Oddly  enough  I  had,  about  the  date  of  these 
inquiries,  tried  to  get  at  the  modus  operandi  of 
the  novelist  by  help  of  a  small  experiment  on 
myself.  I  had  been  a  great  devourer  of  novels, 
but,  so  far  as  I  know,  had  never  shown  the  slightest 
capacity  for  inventing  a  story.  I  remember  how 
humiliated  I  had  felt  again  and  again  w^hen  vainly 
trying  to  produce  a  fairy  story  for  my  children. 
One  day  some  wily  friend  remarked,  "  You  are 
a  psychologist ;  why  don't  you  write  a  novel  ?  " 
adding,  "  You  might,  you  know,  earn  more  money 
that  way."     The  force  of  "  suggestion  "   asserted 


196  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

itself.  The  idea  stuck  in  my  brain,  and  before 
I  knew  where  I  was,  I  had  jotted  down  the  out- 
hne  of  a  short  story.  I  called  it  "  Friendly 
Rivalry."  The  scene  was  laid  in  a  future  Cam- 
bridge ("  Eng."),  and  the  heroine  was,  of  course, 
a  charming  girl  graduate,  robed  like  Portia  in 
the  lawyer's  gown.  I  could  not  say  how  it  came 
to  shape  itself.  Unlike  my  more  serious  writing, 
which  was  for  the  greater  part  a  matter  of  fiercely 
conscious  struggling  towards  the  light,  it  spun 
itself  out  as  easily  and  as  smoothly  as  a  spider's 
thread.  The  story  was  accepted,  and  at  once 
printed,  by  the  editor  of  Harper^s  Magazine.  It 
brought  me  the  largest  honorarium  I  ever  re- 
ceived for  a  contribution  to  a  serial.  And  in 
remitting  it  the  editor  actually  told  me  he  would 
be  glad  to  have  more  stories  of  the  kind  from 
my  pen.  The  experiment  appeared  to  me  to 
confirm  the  view  of  Stevenson  that — for  some 
novelists  at  least — the  fashioning  of  a  story  is 
largely  a  subconscious  mental  process^  But  un- 
fortunately it  did  more  than  that.  Hitherto 
I  had  retained  some  of  my  boyish  awe  for 
the  creator  of  fiction.  Yet  here  was  I,  wholly 
unpractised  in  the  art,  with  a  firmly  organized 
bent  of  mind  towards  abstract  thought — that  is 
to  say,  the  polar  opposite  of  imaginative  reali- 
zation— succeeding  on  my  very  first  attempt.  I 
knew  that,  according  to  all  rational  theory,  I  ought 
not  to  have  been  able  to  dash  off  this  and  a  couple 
of  other  stories  which  I  then  got  printed.  I  could 
only  suppose  that  the  art  of  story-weaving  is  a 
sort   of   trick,  dependent  on   the    development   of 


EXPERIMENTS   IN  FICTION  197 

some  out-of-the-way  corner  of  the  brain,  like 
precocious  musical  composition.  This  may  help 
to  account  for  the  considerable  quantity  of  accept- 
able fiction  which  gives  no  hint  of  a  superior 
intellect.  It  may  account  also  for  an  occa- 
sional display  of  the  novelist's  talent  by  people 
in  whom  the  germ  of  it  is,  for  the  most  part, 
hidden  away,  as  in   my   own   case.^ 

I  The  astonishing  change  of  Kterary  output  in  Grant  Allen's 
case  was,  I  thought,  due  to  exceptional  versatility  of  mind. 


CHAPTER    X 

OUTSIDE   INTERESTS 

My  professional  work  kept  me  fully  employed 
during  the  eighties.  The  lecturing  in  London 
and  elsewhere  involved  fatiguing  journeys,  and 
shortened  the  working  day.  Yet  I  contrived  to 
keep  in  touch  with  outside  interests.  "  Semi- 
recluse,"  as  I  was  correctly  described  by  a  journal- 
ist, who  once  wrote  an  account  of  me  and  my 
work  in  an  appropriately  modest  journal,  the 
Echo,  I  had  keen  sympathies  with  much  that 
was  going  on  in  the  world.  Even  our  tranquil 
Hampstead  had  its  agitations.  There  was  our 
Speculative  Society,  which  used  to  discuss  econo- 
mical, social,  and  other  questions  in  the  Holly 
Bush  Inn.  We  superior  Hampsteadians  rather 
liked  to  coquette  with  a  risky  idea  like  Socialism ; 
and  I  rem.ember  a  great  occasion  when  W.  Morris 
and  Hyndman  held  forth  to  us  on  their  creed  in 
the  house  of  one  of  the  Speculative  fraternity. 
Hyndman  launched  out  vigorously  against  us 
brain-workers,  who,  he  told  us  with  admirable 
candour,  were  quite  useless  members  of  the 
community.  I  recall,  too,  how  the  noble  leonine 
head   of  W.    Morris    shook   and   the   face   flushed 

108 


CULTURE  AT  HAMPSTEAD  199 

with  excitement,  as  he  rose  to  combat  some  of 
the  anti-sociaHst  speakers.  One  prominent  figure 
in  the  Speculative  gatherings  was  Sidney  Webb. 
I  have  a  misty  idea  that  I  first  met  Bernard  Shaw 
as  a  sociahst  lecturer  in  some  Hampstead  drawing- 
room,  and  that  his  strongly  emphasized  super- 
manity  struck  harshly  upon  our  Hampstead 
self-complacency. 

Among  matters  of  local  interest  was  the  plucky 
fight  for  the  subscription-library.  I  was  on  the 
committee  when  the  death-sentence  on  our  little 
institution  was  about  to  be  read.  It  was  then 
located  in  a  small  building  in  Upper  Heath  Street, 
and  quite  hidden  from  sight.  Some  of  us  urged 
that,  before  closing  its  career,  we  should  try  the 
experiment  of  exposing  it  to  the  gaze  of  men. 
A  small  room  was  found  in  the  High  Street  above 
a  shop,  on  the  windows  of  which  its  name  was 
amply  displayed.  This  proved  to  be  the  turn- 
ing-point in  its  fortunes.  The  upper  chamber 
was  soon  too  small,  and  Stanfield  House,  where 
the  painter  of  our  sea-coasts  once  lived,  became 
its  fitting  dwelling-place. 

Of  the  interests  lying  outside  Hampstead  the 
one  that  touched  my  work  most  closely  was  the 
Metaphysical  Society.  This  institution  had  been 
founded  (in  1869)  by  James  Knowles,  who  was 
at  that  time  editor  of  the  Contemporary  Review, 
and  who  had  secured  the  ear  of  Tennyson  and 
others  as  the  chief  promoters  of  the  movement. 
A  glance  at  the  names  on  the  first  list  tells  one 
that  the  word  "  metaphysical  "  was  in  this  con- 
nection   used    in    our    loosest    English    fashioli. 


200  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

The  "  metaphysicians  "  were  chiefly  theologians 
and  men  of  science,  with  two  or  three  men  of 
letters  thrown  in.  Knowles  made  use  of  its  dis- 
cussions by  printing  some  of  them  as  "  symposia  " 
in  his  Review.  As  might  have  been  expected, 
when  men  of  various  religious  creeds  were  con- 
fronted with  agnostics,  the  discussions  tufhed 
largely  on  theological  questions.  As  such  they 
offered  a  good  opportunity  for  doughty  dispu- 
tation. They  offered,  too,  an  opportunity  to  men 
who  were  apt  to  enclose  themselves  too  narrowly 
within  the  boundaries  of  a  particular  set  to  find 
out  something  of  the  moral,  if  not  also  of  the 
intellectual,  worth  that  lurked  in  their  opponents. 
Not  long  since,  I  heard  from  the  lips  of  the  Rev. 
Peter  Hawthornethwaite,  who  acted  for  some 
time  as  chaplain  to  a  Catholic  member  of  the 
Society,  W.  G.  Ward-or  "Ideal  Ward,"  as  he 
was  called  by  his  friends — at  Freshwater,  a 
charming  story  of  one  of  these  rapprochements. 
The  Catholic  Ward  and  his  agnostic  opponent, 
Huxley,  found  that  they  lived  near  one  another 
in  St.  John's  Wood.  So  upon  returning  from 
the  meetings  of  the  Metaphysical  they  fell  into 
the  way  of  walking  together  from  the  Marl- 
borough Road  Station.  In  order  to  prolong  some 
friendly  colloquy,  Huxley  would  accompany  Ward 
to  his  door ;  the  latter  then  returned  the  civility : 
the  to-and-fro  peripatetic  discussion  being  often 
prolonged  to  a  late  hour.  Possibly,  if  we  could 
probe  the  deeper  value  of  things,  we  should  say 
that  the  founder  of  the  Metaphysical  Society 
never   achieved  anything  finer  than  the  bringing 


THE  METAPHYSICAL   SOCIETY  201 

of  what  might  well  have  seemed  an  oddly  assorted 
pair  of  inquirers  into  this  spiritual  fellowship 
under  the  benedictory  eyes   of  the  stars. 

By  the  time  I  joined  the  Metaphysical  the 
impulse  of  this  reciprocal  self-revelation  had  ex- 
hausted itself.  Members  were  becoming  weari- 
somely familiar  with  one  another's  points  of  view. 
If,  as  one  of  the  early  members  once  roguishly 
put  it,  a  chief  motive  in  the  formation  of  the 
society  was  Tennyson's  desire  to  consult  the 
experts  as  to  whether  he  had  such  a  thing  as 
a  soul,  the  poet  must,  one  supposes,  by  this 
time  have  received  his  answer.  And  so  the 
eminent  cardinals  and  other  theologians  lost  their 
pristine  zeal,  and  attendance  at  the  meetings 
began  to  dwindle.  In  the  year  of  my  election 
a  more  serious  attempt  was  made  by  Henry 
Sidgwick,  F.  Pollock,  and  others  to  turn  the 
society  into  a  strictly  metaphysical  debating 
club.  But,  as  might  perhaps  have  been  con- 
jectured, the  love  of  pure  philosophy  was  too 
weak  in  London  to  keep  the  discussions  going 
after  the  fires  of  theological  controversy  had  been 
put  out. 

Among  my  more  tepid  outside  interests  were 
the  doings  of  the  Authors'  Society.  My  neigh- 
bour and  friend,  Walter  Besant,  had  so  fervid 
an  enthusiasm  for  his  bantling  that  I  could 
not  well  avoid  helping  him.  I  recognized  the 
desirability  of  guarding  the  business  interests  of 
writers  by  such  a  society ;  and  the  passing  of 
the  Copyright  Act  alone  shows  that  it  rendered 
yeoman's  service  to  the  cause.     But  I  got  rather 


202  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

tired  of  the  perpetual  drumming  on  the  relations 
of  authors  and  publishers,  which  seemed  to  me 
to  be  inflated  into  the  supreme  interest  of  liter- 
ature. Nor  could  I  altogether  stomach  the 
common  assumption  of  its  promoters  that  fiction 
was  the  whole — or  even  the  more  important  part 
— of  literature.  Then,  too,  the  indulgence  in 
dreams  of  a  world-wide  Eldorado,  of  which 
English  writers  of  novels  might  take  possession 
if  only  their  property  were  put  on  a  just  basis, 
struck  me  as  hardly  likely  to  foster  the  worthier 
sort  of  interest  in  letters.  It  savoured,  as  R.  L. 
Stevenson — a  writer  by  no  means  indifferent  to 
the  financial  side  of  his  craft — once  remarked  to 
me,  of  "  the  commercial  traveller  with  wings."  ^ 
So  after  subscribing  to  it  for  a  decent  number  of 
years,   I  withdrew  my  name. 

One  of  the  oddest  engagements  with  which  I 
saddled  myself  was  membership  of  the  Neurolo- 
gical Society.  Dr.  Hughlings  Jackson  was  strongly 
of  opinion  that  doctors  who  had  to  do  with  brain 
troubles  should  know  something  of  psychology. 
He  himself  had  been  a  reader  of  psychological 
works,  and  some  of  his  most  important  ideas 
on  the  course  of  decay  in  the  brain-organs  showed 
him  to  have  been  a  diligent  student  of  Herbert 
Spencer's  writings.  I  felt  rather  strange  at  these 
gatherings  of  medical  specialists,  and,  of  course, 
found  some  of  the  papers  above  my  comprehen- 
sion. But  I  reaped  not  only  much  pleasure  but 
substantial   profit   from   my   association   with   the 

'  When  I  repeated  Stevenson's  words  to  Meredith  the  latter 
added,  in  an  undertone,  "  Seraphic  wings." 


SIR  WITJJAM   JENNER  203 

"  brain- workers  "  in  the  complete  sense  of  the 
term.  I  should  like  to  be  able  to  think  that  I 
had  been  of  some  assistance  to  a  society  which 
always  treated  me  with  rare  consideration.  My 
experiences  among  these  distinguished  specialists, 
supplemented  by  many  kindnesses  received  from 
individual  members  of  the  profession,  led  me  to 
place   doctors   high   in  the   scale   of  humanity. 

During  the  later  seventies  and  the  eighties  I 
took  what  I  fear  was  for  the  most  part  but  a 
lukewarm  share  in  the  doings  of  the  Convoca- 
tion of  my  University.  Being  in  favour  of 
extending  the  whole  curriculum  of  studies  to 
women,  I  gave  my  vote  accordingly.  There  were 
some  hot  discussions  on  this  subject  in  the 
theatre  of  the  University.  On  the  occasion  when 
Sir  William  Jenner  made  his  stirring  appeal 
against  the  proposed  change,  I  was  sitting  high 
up  near  one  of  the  doors,  and  Sir  William  was 
almost  opposite  me  on  the  other  side  of  the  pas- 
sage. As  his  fine  head,  v/ith  its  silky  v/hite  Lair, 
appeared  above  the  sitters,  one  could  see  that  he 
v/as  agitated.  There  was  a  discernible  tremor 
of  the  voice,  and  I  thought  I  saw  the  gleam  of  a 
tear  in  his  eye  as  he  urged  his  passionate  personal 
argument.  "  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "  I  have  only 
one  dearly  beloved  daughter,  and  rather  than 
see  her  on  the  benches  of  a  dissecting-room  I 
would  follow  her  to  the  grave."  As  his  voice 
ceased  there  was  a  long  hush  :  university  dis- 
putes seemed  for  a  long  m^oment  cold  and  almost 
unreal  by  the  side  of  this  baring  of  a  father's 
breast.     It  was  the  most  moving  bit  of  oratory 


204  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

that  I  ever  listened  to,  and  the  very  futiHty  of 
the  protest  added  to  the  pathos  of  it. 

In  the  yet  larger  fields  of  activity  I  made,  I 
fear,  in  these  maturer  years  but  a  poor  show.  ^  I 
was  a  hopelessly  wn-"  political  animal  "—if  by 
political  is  meant  caring  keenly  about  the  special 
group  of  questions  which  the  politicians— or  their 
cHentele— happen  to  make  prominent  at  a  par- 
ticular hour.  It  was  only  when  some  cherished 
principle  seemed  to  be  at  stake  that  I  rose  to 
a  satisfactory  pitch  of  political  ardour.  Conse- 
quently much  of  the  party-wrangling  left  me  pro- 
vokingly  unmoved.  Thus  in  a  matter  that  seemed 
to  me  one  of  supreme  importance  for  a  rapidly 
developing  democratic  community,  namely,  popular 
education,  the  squabbles  of  politicians  over  the 
religious  difficulty  made  my  political  sentiments 
retreat  out  of  sight  like  injured  tentacles. 

Yet  in  spite  of  the  paralysing  effect  of  this 
political  fastidiousness — as  others  might  call  it — 
I  did  now  and  then  take  a  leap  into  the  arena  of 
public  affairs.  Repugnances  had  their  tempera- 
mental roots  in  me,  and  organized  with  these 
there  was  a  strong  impulse  to  denounce  what  I 
held  to  be  unworthy.  These  proclivities  were 
admirably  contrived  to  lead  me  into  difficulties. 
I  remember  how,  on  a  Saturday  night  outside  a 
public-house  in  the  Tottenham  Court  Road,  I 
ventured  on  the  folly  of  trying  to  prevail  upon 
a  drunken  man  to  cease  pommelling  his  wife. 
To  my  astonishment,  the  injured  lady,  as  with 
Quixotic  haste  I  had  taken  her  to  be,  turned 
fiercely  upon  me  and,  in  the  strongest  vernacular. 


FOOTE'S   CASE  205 

bade  me  mind  my  own  business.  The  ex- 
perience gave  me  a  new  insight  into  the  complexity 
of  the  marital  relation. 

It  was  this  tendency  to  attack  what  appeared 
to  me  abuses  which  prompted  me  to  get  up  a 
petition  for  the  reduction  of  the  penalty  of  one 
year's  imprisonment  in  the  famous  case  of  Foote 
(1883).  He  had  been  charged  with  blasphemy 
under  an  old  Act  which  had  long  lain  rusty.  Some 
of  us  felt  that,  to  say  the  least,  the  sentence 
savoured  of  vindictiveness ;  and  I  undertook, 
with  the  assistance  of  Leslie  Stephen  and  others, 
to  prepare  a  petition  to  the  Home  Secretary  (Sir 
William  Harcourt)  for  the  partial  remission  of 
the  penalty. 

The  publication  for  which  Foote  was  punished 
was,  I  knew  (to  put  it  mildly),  shockingly  coarse  ; 
but  I  failed  to  see  how  a  strong  dislike,  which  was 
as  much  aesthetic  as  moral,  could  justify  such 
a  harsh  sentence.  The  bits  of  insight  into  some 
of  the  dark  corners  of  human  character  which  my 
invitations  to  sign  the  petition  gave  me  proved 
very  interesting.  Some  whom  I  had  counted 
upon  were  first  wobbly  and  finally  declined  to 
sign.  Amusing  episodes  were  not  wanting  to 
enliven  the  rather  grim  business.  A  distinguished 
author,  who  had  not  stuck  at  a  very  irritating 
offence  to  orthodox  belief  by  writing  the  word 
God  with  a  small  "  g  "  (which  I  thought  rather 
absurd  in  one  who  presumably  continued  to  write 
"  Jupiter "  and  the  other  deities  of  polytheism 
with  capitals),  was  known  to  be  hesitating;  and  I 
received     letters     (one    from    an    intimate    friend 


206  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

of  his)  rating  him  soundly  for  not  coming  to 
the  help  of  a  man  who  was  being  punished  for 
doing  a  thing  which,  in  its  essence,  was  identical 
with  what  he  had  managed  to  do  with  impunity. 
We  succeeded  in  mustering  a  good  list  of  names, 
including  those  of  Huxley,  Tyndall,  Richard  Holt 
Hutton,  Llev/elyn  Davies,  Canon  Ainger.^  But 
the  subject  was  no  doubt  an  unpleasant  one,  and 
I  was  impressed  by  the  appearance  of  so  much 
timidity,  not  only  among  the  clergy,  but  among 
representatives  of  freedom  of  thought.  I  had  a 
polite  acknowledgment  from  the  Hom.e  Office,  and 
that  was  all.  Somebody — if  I  am  not  mistaken 
Peter  Taylor — questioned  Harcourt  about  the 
petition,  and  was  informed  that  he  did  not  intend 
to  mitigate  the  penalty. 

There  were  other  matters  of  public  interest, 
making  a  greater  uproar,  with  respect  to  which 
my  attitude  was  distinctly  not  the  popular  one. 
I  had,  I  think,  heard  Bradlaugh  speak  before  he 
was  elected  a  member  of  Parliament,^  and  had 
formed  a  strong  opinion  as  to  the  honesty  of  his 
purpose.  Feeling,  too,  that  he  was  a  brave  man 
to  face  the  opprobrium  which  is  certain  to  fall 
upon  a  person  of  a  pronounced  singularity  of 
views,  I  followed  with  a  keen  interest  the  con- 
stitutional struggle  between  him  and  the  orthodox 
party  in  the  House  of  Commons.  I  heard 
him,  as  he  stood  walled  in  by  piles  of  heavy 
law-books,    defend    before   the   three    Judges    who 

I  On  George  Meredith's  friendly  attitude  towards  Foote,  see 
the  latter's  article,  "  George  Meredith,  Free  Thinker,"  in  the 
English  Review,  March  1913. 


BRADLAUGH'S   CASE  207 

tried  the  case  his  right  to  affirm  instead  of  taking 
the  oath,  and  I  was  impressed  by  the  consider- 
ation, at  once  courteous  and  grave,  which  the 
Lord  Chief  Justice  Coleridge  bestowed  upon  his 
arguments. 

As  to  the  deeper  significance  of  this  long 
conflict  within  and  Vv^ithout  the  House,  I  had 
a  very  poor  opinion  of  the  motives  and  aims  of 
Bradlaugh's  assailants.  One  could  not  believe 
that  these  pushing  lawyers,  capitalists,  and  other 
men  of  the  world  were  quite  so  profoundly 
shocked  by  the  impiety  of  Bradlaugh's  behaviour 
as  they  wished  us  to  think  they  were.  They 
had,  I  conceived,  a  strong  dislike  to  the  man 
and  to  his  teaching.  More  than  this,  they  must 
have  known  that  such  facts  as  the  taking  of  the 
Parliamentary  oath  by  the  member  who  had  writ- 
ten the  name  "  God "  with  a  small  initial  had 
given  the  coup  de  grace  to  the  idea  of  any  religious 
solemnity  attaching  to  the  performance.  And  it 
was  precisely  this  knowledge  which  lay  at  the 
deeper  and  tougher  root  of  their  hostility  to 
Bradlaugh's  proceedings.  For  what  he  did  was 
fully  to  expose  the  empty  formality  of  this  swearing 
on  the  Bible  upon  taking  a  seat  in  the  House.  As 
an  honest  man  whose  views  were  well  known,  he 
would  not  use  a  form  of  words  which  in  his  case 
carried  no  belief.  Thus  he  became  odious  in  a 
new  way,  making  himself  a  "  nuisance  "  by  dis- 
turbing the  good  customs  of  the  House  and  by 
claiming  to  be  more  conscientious  than  many  of 
the  gentlemen  who  had  quietly  complied  with 
the  ancient  form.     I  did  not  fail  to  admire  the 


208  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

skilful  manner  in  which  Bradlaugh  went  to  work, 
driving  his  opponents  from  one  trench  to  another. 
It  would  have  been  strange  indeed  if  the  full  fury 
of  that  hatred,  which  any  vital  attack  on  the  deeper- 
seated  prejudices  of  the  Briton  is  pretty  certain 
to  arouse,  had  not  burst  upon  his  head. 

Foote  and  Bradlaugh  were  both  fitting  targets 
for  the  fiercer  kind  of  odium  theologicum.  A  third 
figure  less  infuriatingly  obnoxious  to  the  properly 
framed  English  mind  was  Parnell.  The  doings 
of  the  Parnell  Commission  stirred  me  to  the 
depths.  Though  no  Home  Ruler,  I  could  not  but 
regard  the  attack  of  The  Times,  as  disclosed  by 
the  proceedings  of  the  Commission  and  the  col- 
lapse of  Pigott,  as  a  disgrace  to  English  journalism. 
Nothing  could  have  more  clearly  illustrated 
the  lengths  to  which  men  will  go,  when 
spurred  by  violent  partisan  hostility,  in  shirking 
the  duty  of  making  reasonably  sure  of  the  truth 
of  their  statements,  than  the  eager  and  fatuous 
acceptance  by  our  leading  journal  of  Pigott 's 
wonderful  story.  The  effect  of  this  revelation 
upon  me  was  to  make  me  still  less  of  a  party 
politician  than  I  had  been  before. 

In  spite  of  engrossing  work,  I  took  care  to  re- 
serve a  respectable  slice  of  the  day  for  recreation. 
The  old  allowance  of  open-air  exercise  was  striven 
for,  if  not  always  maintained.  Walking  was  my 
2nece  de  resistance.  There  were  solitary  walks, 
walks  with  my  chum  or  other  friend,  as  well  as 
with  a  smaller  or  larger  company.  Of  the  latter 
kind  of  companionship  I  had  not  only  the  Sunday 
Tramps,    but    the    Hampstead    Tramps,    and    the 


RECREATIONS  209 

Hampstead  Mixed  Tramps — never  to  be  con- 
founded with  purely  male  aggregations.  They 
were  all  good,  and  served  to  refresh  me.  Perhaps 
the  walk  that  came  nearest  to  perfection  was 
with  one  companion,  if  this  "  one "  was  nicely 
attuned,  as  happened  when  I  was  lucky  enough 
to  secure  Leslie  Stephen  or  Colonel  Osborn  as 
partner.  Almost  as  good  was  a  tramp  with  two 
or  three  others  when  these  were  carefully  selected. 
Does  an  echo  of  Osborn's  fine  recitations  from 
Shelley,  or  of  the  mirthful  stories  of  our  Irish 
friend,  Lysaght,  still  linger  on  the  Heath  or  in 
the  lanes  conducting  to  Hendon  or  Harrow  ?  But 
the  "  mixed  "  tramping  had  its  own  attractions  ; 
and  the  wits  of  the  male  contingent  would  be  hard 
put  to  it  at  times,  as  when  the  ladies  indulged 
in  "  Austenolatry  " — to  use  a  word  coined,  as  he 
himself  told  me,   by  Leslie  Stephen. 

To  these  walks  were  added  skating  parties  in 
the  winter  to  Hendon  or  Elstree,  which  added 
new  verve  to  our  vocal  competitions.  Later  there 
came  the  mixed  cycling  party,  a  poor  ghostly 
simulacrum  of  the  sociable  tramp,  incapable,  for 
the  greater  part,  of  producing  more  effective 
intercourse  than  an  exchange  of  a  few  spasmodic 
monosyllables.  Finally,  there  were  the  tennis 
parties  on  the  Library  Court,  or  on  the  hospitable 
court  of  Basil  Champneys,  when  "  silver  "  speech 
lapsed  completely   into   "  golden  "   silence. 

Among  my  more  quiet  and  sedentary  recrea- 
tions music  held  the  first  place.  I  was  able  to 
continue  now  and  again  the  delightful  visits  to 
St.  James's  Hall ;  and  when  too  tired  to  go  into 

15 


210  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

town  in  the  evening,  there  was  the  excellent  series 
of  subscription  concerts  at  Hampstead  to  fall  back 
on,  where  the  Joachim  Quartet  and  other  excellent 
artists  performed.  I  had  also,  but  too  rarely, 
the  privilege  of  accompanying  that  scientific 
lover  of  music,  Edmund  Gurney,  to  the  Crystal 
Palace  on  a  Saturday  afternoon  to  enjoy  one  of 
the  Symphony  Concerts  conducted  by  A.  H.  Mann. 

To  these  golden  opportunities  was  added  the 
frequent  possibility  of  hearing  good  music  at  the 
house  of  a  friend  in  or  near  Hampstead.  To 
music  I  still  clung  both  for  my  purest  enjoyment 
and  for  my  fullest  spiritual  refreshment.  It  has 
occurred  to  me  that,  great  as  are  the  facilities 
in  London  to-day  for  hearing  good  music,  there 
remains  still  a  want  to  be  supplied.  Many  a 
lover  of  music  living  in  the  suburbs,  whom  a  day's 
work  in  town  leaves  too  tired  to  prolong  his  stay 
into  the  late  evening,  would,  I  think,  be  grateful 
for  the  opportunity  of  attending  at  the  tea  hour 
a  short  concert  lasting,  say,  an  hour  or  an  hour 
and  a  half.  A  series  of  such  short  concerts 
might  appropriately  be  named  "  On  the  way 
home." 

Attendance  at  the  theatre  was  more  difficult 
for  me  to  compass  without  interfering  with  the 
conditions  of  my  work.  My  keen  appetite  for  the 
drama  had  to  cut  down  its  rations  to  the  beggarly 
war-volume  of  a  rare  visit.  I  had  heard  Salvini 
in  the  seventies,  and  managed  to  keep  to  some 
extent  in  touch  with  the  stage  :  interest  in  which 
had  been  awakened  in  me  by  the  writings  of 
Lessing.      In    addition   to    some  of   our   own  dis- 


THE   THEATRE  211 

tinguished  actors,  ^  I  saw  Coquelin  (pere),  Sarah 
Bernhardt,  and  other  foreign  visitors.  My  taste 
for  Itahan  opera  had  dechned  after  I  had  made 
acquaintance   with   Wagner's   Musical  Dramas. 

A  visit  to  the  theatre  was  thus  for  me  a  notable 
experience.  The  complete  break  with  everyday 
surroundings  and  activities  was  undoubtedly 
refreshing,  and  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word  re- 
creating. To  this  extent  it  was  good  for  me, 
even  if  I  was  liable  to  have  my  nerves  less  ready 
the  next  morning  for  a  resumption  of  penwork. 
The  cost  of  the  indulgence  began  to  be  realized 
even  during  the  long  omnibus  drive — its  last  mid- 
night journey — back  to  Hampstead.  How  we 
anticipated,  on  nearing  the  foot  of  Haverstock 
Hill,  the  dreary  substitution  of  a  creeping  equine 
walk  for  a  trot  !  The  slowness  of  the  horses  ap- 
peared to  be  increased  by  their  way  of  attacking 
the  steeper  portions  in  a  zigzag  line.  The  bus 
was  lit  only  by  a  dim,  smelly  lamp,  and  all  the 
conditions  were  favourable  to  drowsiness.  On 
one  of  these  slow  home-comings,  the  figure  of 
our  dear  Canon  Ainger  was  discovered,  curled 
up  in  an  inner  corner  of  the  bus  for  an 
oblivious  doze. 

My  chief  indoor  recreation,  besides  music,  was 
novel-reading.  I  devoured  a  good  many  English 
and  quite  as  many  French  stories,  and  got  so  far 
with  my  Norse  as  to  be  able  to  read  some  Nor- 
wegian novelettes.     German  fiction  had  not  kept 

I  I  regret  that,  like  Edward  Fitzgerald,  I  lacked  the  pecu- 
liar complex  of  qualities  (both  positive  and  negative)  which  is 
the  basis  of  an  enthusiasm  for  Henry  Irving. 


212  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

its  early  hold  iipon  me.  It  was  much  later  that 
I  attained  proficiency  enough  in  the  Italian 
language  to  enjoy  reading  its  romances.  I  cared 
much  for  good  writing,  and  found  not  a  few 
popular  English  novels  irritatingly  lacking  in  dis- 
tinction of  style.  In  contrast  with  English  novels, 
I  found  that  fairly  good  writing,  as  well  'as  a 
measure  of  artistic  skill,  could  be  counted  upon 
in  French  romances ;  and  I  have  often  done  in 
France  and  Switzerland  what  I  should  never 
have  risked  doing  in  England — bought  at  a  rail- 
way bookstall  a  novel  by  a  writer  whose  name 
was  quite  unknown  to  me.  Although  I  could  be 
thrilled  by  a  strong  situation  and  have  my  facul- 
ties stimulated  by  an  ingeniously  contrived  plot, 
my  interest  in  novels  centred  in  the  characters. 
As  long  as  these  were  well  studied  and  consistently 
developed — whether  by  a  George  Eliot  or  by  a 
George  Meredith — I  was  content ;  but  could  never 
bring  myself  to  read  a  story  in  a  detached 
attitude  merely  to  satisfy  an  intellectual  curiosity, 
as  my  friend  Henry  Sidgwick  could. 


CHAPTER    XI 

OUTSIDE   INTERESTS   {continued) 

By  this  time  our  circle  of  friends  had  grown  large 
enough.  Time  was  testing  degrees  of  amicable 
tenacity,  more  particularly  with  those  at  a  dis- 
tance. Yet  some  of  my  older  friends  were  kind 
enough  to  pitch  their  tents  on  our  Heights,  taking 
the  place  of  those  who  had  been  seduced  into 
abandoning  Hampstead  for  the  vortex  of  London. 
Among  these,  I  set  particular  store  upon  Cotter 
Morison,  the  Walter  Besants,  and  the  (Professor) 
Kennedys — a  cheery  group  which  brought  a  new 
gladness  to  our  home.  The  retirement  of  the 
breezy  upland  continued  to  favour  a  growing 
knowledge  and  sympathy  between  friends.  And 
then  one  sometimes  had  that  most  delightful  of 
experiences,    a   visit   to   friends   in   the   country. 

One  summer  we  spent  at  the  Charles  Lewes' s 
cottage  on  Crockham  Common,  Kent.  This 
sojourn  in  the  heart  of  the  country  made  a 
jubilee  year  for  our  children.  In  their  fondness 
for  climbing  into  trees  they  seemed  to  be  reverting 
to  the  arboreal  habits  of  their  ancestors.  Living 
things  were  an  endless  delight,  from  the  half-tame 
rabbits   and   their  funny  little   gambols  up  to  the 

213 


214  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

nightjar  sitting  on  her  eggs,  hardly  distinguishable 
from  her  couch  of  brown  bracken,  with  just  a  thin 
slit  of  the  eye  revealed — a  wonderful  picture  of 
combined  fear  and  wariness.  How  they  rebelled 
against  the  presence  of  a  meddlesome  heath-keeper 
when  they  returned  to  Hampstead  !  As  for  me, 
I  felt  taken  back  to  my  home,  to  my  Quantock 
heights.  I  got  a  quite  new  impression  of  London 
when  it  was  no  longer  my  workshop,  now  when 
I  visited  it  with  the  certainty  of  sweet  air  and 
perfect  evening  stillness  awaiting  me  in  the 
Squerries  Park,  which  I  should  cross  returning 
from  Westerham  to  the  Common. 

Another  opportunity  for  social  converse  and 
for  the  warming  up  of  friendships  in  the  leisure 
of  days  in  the  country  was  supplied  by  our  good 
friend  Edward  Clodd.  The  gatherings  at  Alde- 
burgh  at  Whitsuntide  and  other  seasons  must 
make  an  illuminated  page  in  the  book  of  memory 
for  many  men  besides  myself.  So  happy  a  con- 
junction of  desirable  qualities  in  ar  host  one 
cannot  expect  to  be  common.  To  a  generous  hos- 
pitality he  added  a  quickly  responsive  sympathy — 
which  was  at  the  bottom  of  his  art  of  bringing 
the  right  people  together — ^while  his  many-sided 
knowledge,  his  abundant  humour,  and  his 
wonderful  memory  qualified  him  to  be  a  lavish 
purveyor  of  entertaining  talk.  In  my  case  the 
pleasure  of  these  visits  was  enhanced  by  my  recent 
discovery  of  the  East  Anglian  Coast,  with  which 
I  fell  so  deeply  in  love  as  to  follow  up  some 
descriptive  articles  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  by 
a  longer  one  in  the  Cornhill. 


R.   L.   STEVENSON  215 

Among  the  pleasant  glimpses  of  old  acquaint- 
ances which  my  occasional  excursions  into  the 
country  gave  me  was  a  call  on  R.  L.  Stevenson 
and  his  wife  at  Skerry vore,  Bournemouth,  in  what, 
I  believe,  was  their  last  year  in  England.  I  had 
seen  him  now  and  again  at  the  Savile,  but  had 
acquiried  since  then  a  much  deeper  interest  in 
him.  Although  I  was  his  senior,  the  fact  of  our 
having  joined  the  Savile  about  the  same  time, 
and  still  more  the  synchronizing  of  our  series  of 
contributions  to  the  Cornhill,  made  him  seem  in 
a  curious  way  a  brotherly  companion.  Interest 
in  him  was  especially  aroused  by  the  story 
I  gathered  from  Leslie  Stephen  and  others  of 
the  plucky  way  in  which  he  was  carrying  on 
his  struggle  with  poor  health.  And  finally  there 
was  the  magic  of  his  books — "  Virginibus 
Puerisque,"  "Prince  Otto,"  "A  Child's  Garden 
of  Verse,"  and  others — which  had  captivated  my 
fancy  and  made  of  me  a  warm  Stevensonian.  I 
called  at  Skerryvore  one  afternoon,  and  was 
shown  into  Stevenson's  bedroom,  where  he  lay 
with  head  and  back  propped  up  with  pillows. 
A  touch  of  delicacy,  which  the  long  illness  had 
stamped  on  his  refined  face,  threw  into  stronger 
relief  the  vigour  of  his  long  black  locks  and 
large,  penetrating  eyes.  He  began  by  asking  me 
whether  I  remembered  the  last  occasion  on  which 
we  had  met,  and  on  my  pleading  forgetfulness, 
he  added,  "  It  was  in  the  smoking-room  of  the 
Savile.  You  and  Shadworth  Hodgson  were  dis- 
cussing the  problem  of  free  will,  and  I  had  the 
hardihood  to   cut  into  your  talk."     He  said  this 


216  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

with  a  touch  of  genuine  modesty,  behind  which 
ghmmered  the  suspicion  of  a  roguish  smile.  It 
was  then,  I  think,  that  I  learned  from  him  the 
part  that  dreams  had  played  in  the  "  Strange  Case 
of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  " — a  point  to  which 
he  returned  later  in  "A  Chapter  on  Dreams"  (in 
*'  Across  the  Plains  ").  After  a  short  half-hour's 
chat,  he  gently  bade  me  go,  inviting  me  to  come 
again  in  the  evening.  On  my  return  I  met  Mrs. 
Stevenson,  and  found  her  husband  agile  in  body 
and  brain,  moving  from  point  to  point  in  the 
room,  talking,  gesticulating,  and  sometimes  with 
a  soupQon  of  attitudinizing  as  he  leaned  his  lithe 
body  over  a  chair  or  threw  his  long  arms  behind 
his  head.  Among  many  things  touched  on 
during  these  visits  there  stands  out  a  proposal  of 
R.  L.  S.  to  study  individual  character  by  sending 
round  to  his  friends  a  questionnaire,  of  the  form  : 
"  What  fault  (or  vice)  would  you  most  dislike  to 
be  accused  of  ?  "  His  project  interested  me 
greatly,  for  I  had  always  believed  in  vigorous 
detestations  as  a  necessary  ingredient  in  manli- 
ness, and  Stevenson's  inquiry  promised  to  bring 
out  some  fine  pet  aversions.  But  though  there 
was  a  talk  of  sending  me  a  form  to  fill  in,  I  can- 
not remember  having  received  one  ;  and  perhaps 
it  was  only  a  passing  idea  flung  out  from  Steven- 
son's teeming  brain. 

Not  long  after  seeing  Stevenson  I  renewed 
my  earlier  acquaintance  with  John  Addington 
Symonds.  I  was  at  Samaden  in  the  Engadine, 
and  had  just  undergone  a  particularly  painful 
experience  of  a  glacier  accident.     I  had  arranged 


A  GLACIER  ACCIDENT  217 

with  the  chaplain  of  the  place  in  which  I  was 
staying  to  walk  up  from  the  Bernina  huts  to  the 
Diavolezza  Pass  and  back  again,  on  the  distinct 
understanding  that,  being  without  a  guide,  we 
were  not  to  return  by  the  glacier  to  Pontresina. 
My  poor  comrade,  it  turned  out,  was  one  of  the 
foolishly  self-confident  men  who  hold  that  guides 
are  a  superfluity  for  the  climber.  Seeing  the  foot- 
tracks  on  the  glacier  below  him,  he  suddenly  rushed 
down,  and  was  on  the  ice  before  I  knew  what 
he  was  after.  Full  of  gloomy  apprehensions,  I 
followed,  urging  him  to  come  back.  Then 
I  saw  him  disappear  under  a  puff  of  snow 
smoke.  I  hurried  to  the  edge  of  the  crevasse  into 
which  he  had  fallen,  and  asked  him  whether  I 
could  help  him,  but  he  bade  me  return  to  the 
hut  and  send  up  gLiides  with  a  rope.  The  cre- 
vasse turned  out  to  be  a  closed  one,  and  the  poor 
fellow  must  after  a  time  have  sunk  into  the  icy 
water,  where  he  was  found  by  the  guides.  I 
sent  to  The  Times  particulars  of  the  accident ;  and 
somebody  wrote  to  an  evening  paper  instructing 
me  how  I  ought,  by  making  a  rope  out  of  my 
clothes,  to  have  hauled  my  companion  out  of  the 
crevasse.  This  plausible-looking  demonstration  of 
my  ignorance  was  shown  by  a  second  letter  in 
the  same  paper  from  a  member  of  the  Alpine  Club 
to  be  itself  a  singular  illustration  of  want  of 
knowledge. 

Symonds  had  read  of  the  accident,  and  a  kindly 
prompting  brought  me  not  only  words  of  friendly 
sympathy  but  a  cordial  invitation  to  visit  him 
at   Davos.     This    I   accepted,    and   we   had    some 


218  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

pleasant  walks  together  in  the  mountain  valley, 
free  in  these  August  days  from  patients  and 
tourists  alike,  much  longer  ones  than  the  fleeting 
hours  had  granted  me  in  the  garden  of  his  Clifton 
home.  It  Y>^as  good  to  hear  him  talk  of  his  frientis 
among  the  Swiss  peasants,  and  of  their  excellent 
communal  government.  One  saw  that,  like  Lady 
Duff  Gordon  in  Egypt  and  R.  L.  Stevenson  on 
his  island  in  the  Pacific,  he  knew  how  to  rid  the 
invalided  exile's  lot  of  much  of  its  drea,riness  by 
throwing  himself  sympathetically  into  the  new 
life  of  the  natives. 

It  so  happened  that  the  Master  of  Balliol  was 
visiting  Symonds'  chalet  at  this  time.  But  alas ! 
he  was  out  of  health  and  provokingly  taciturn. 
I  had  met  him  at  Balliol,  but  only  to  exchange 
a  word  or  two,  and  I  hoped  now  to  see  some- 
thing of  the  real  Jowett  whom  his  pupils  speak 
of  in  such  admiring  language.  But  I  was  des- 
tined not  to  discover  the  secret  of  the  great 
man's  influence.  Some  years  later,  when  staying 
at  a  country  house,  I  found  myself  in  the  smoking- 
room  with  three  men  who  suddenly  discovered 
one  another  as  pupils  of  Jovvctt.  Now,  at  last, 
I  thought,  I  am  to  see  the  casket  opened,  and 
the  precious  jeY>^el  of  wisdom  displayed.  But 
unhappily,  again,  each  of  the  Master's  old  pupils 
could  only  add  another  example  of  the  neat  little 
snubs  he  was  wont  to  administer  to  freshmen  : 
not  one  of  which,  I  thought,  approached  in  lustre 
of   wit    the   well-known   remark   of    a    Cambridge 

Head  to  a  junior  fellow  :  "  Ah  !  Mr. ,  we  are 

none  of  us  infallible,  not  even  the  youngest  of  us." 


NORWAY  219 

It  seems  curious  that,  whereas  to  the  schoolboy 
a  prig  is  the  bete  noire  among  nuisances,  yet  so 
many  freshmen  should — to  judge  from  the  good 
stories  that  used  to  circulate  in  the  college 
common-room — appear  at  the  University  with 
intellectual  tumours  demanding  the  instant  appli- 
cation of  the  sarcastic  knife.  I  have  a  suspicion 
that  in  Jowett's  case  the  persistent  and  vivid 
recollection  of  these  early  snubs  may  have  been 
aided  by  the  peculiar  ensemble  of  his  personality. 
An  acrid  rebuke  coming  in  a  low  tone  from  one 
with  so  cherubic  a  head,  and  the  look  of  one 
uplifted  into  the  supernal  regions  of  the  "  Ideas," 
might  well  carry  with  it  a  peculiar  power  of 
perforating  the  moral  tissues. 

New  friendships  came  to  me  through  my  visits 
to  Norway,  which  began  early  in  the  eighties. 
For  the  discomfort  of  crossing  the  North  Sea  I 
was  fully  compensated  by  the  soothing  effect  of 
the  inland  excursions.  The  long  night  had  no 
doubt  the  dravv^back  of  cutting  down  my  hours  of 
sleep,  and  a  dark  curtain  which  my  friend  Francis 
Bond  advised  me  to  take  with  me  had  no  great 
success.  Francis  Bond,  whom  I  met  by  accident 
on  first  stepping  aboard  of  a  Norway  steamer, 
was  an  invaluable  initiator  into  the  right  way  of 
seeing  the  country.  He  insisted  upon  my  learning 
to  fish,  and  I  found  the  pastime  not  only  an 
effective  way  of  getting  through  rainy  days,  but, 
later  on,  of  great  utility  when  I  chanced  to  reach 
a  poorly  provisioned  station  and  had  to  fish  for 
my  supper. 

In  Norway  the  summer  snow  is  so  obliging  as 


220  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

to  come  to  meet  the  tourist  at  the  low  level  of 
3,000  feet,  and  I  had  in  that  country  my  first 
serious  experience  of  snow-climbing  and  ice- 
inspecting.  I  carried  out  my  customary  plan  of 
getting  into  touch  with  the  natives  and  forming 
friendships  in  the  country  which  received  me.  I 
recall  more  especially  a  half-shy  learned  lady  with 
whom  I  have  spent  many  agreeable  days.  She 
was  a  delightful  companion  on  the  mountains, 
where  I  heard  her  once  say  that  all  mankind 
were  egoists — a  statement  that  was  far  from  being 
true  in  her  own  case.  She  gave  me  my  first 
lessons  in  Norse  when  we  were  shut  up  for  some 
days  by  rain  in  a  hut  in  the  Jotunheim,  and 
invited  me  to  her  pleasant  retired  home  at  the 
head  of  one  of  the  small  "  Dale  "  fjords.  Here  I 
had  the  curious  experience  of  inviting  myself  to 
the  celebration  of  her  uncle's  birthday ;  when 
I  was  rash  enough  to  essay  a  speech — a 
becomingly  short  one — in  the  vernacular. 

On  recalling  those  Norwegian  holidays  I  can 
always  recapture  something  of  their  serene  spirit. 
Among  the  beautiful  things  which  return  to  me 
are  the  variously  tinted  mosses  which  make  the 
fjeld  a  parterre  of  colours  in  August.  Even  less 
easily  erasible  from  memory's  tablet  is  a  sunset  seen 
after  rain  from  one  of  the  series  of  islets  which 
girdle  the  coast.  The  peaked  islands,  named  by 
the  Norwegians  after  some  resemblance,  such  as 
"  lion,"  look  at  this  hour  almost  black  against 
the  bright,  warm  tints  of  sea  and  sky. 

I  have  revisited  Norway  within  comparatively 
recent  years,  and  no  doubt  indulged  in  the  usual 


VARIOUS   FRIENDS  221 

doleful  regrets  at  the  "  improvements."  One  can 
hardly  avoid  a  sigh  on  reflecting  that  the  hospit- 
able clergyman,  who  used  to  take  toll  of  all  the 
Englishmen  who  drove  by  his  sequestered  manse 
by  insisting  upon  their  stopping  and  taking  re- 
freshment at  his  table,  must  have  long  since 
disappeared  from  the  Norway  of  tourists.  But 
the  sturdy  "  Gammle  Norge  "  can  take  a  lot  of 
spoiling  yet. 

In  my  ramblings  for  lecturing  and  examining 
purposes,  too,  I  made  a  number  of  new  acquaint- 
ances and  some  lasting  friends.  Among  others 
were  R.  Adamson,  of  Owens  College,  and  three 
Cambridge  men,  Henry  Sidgwick,  James  Ward, 
and  John  Venn.  My  work  extended  my  social 
world  in  another  way,  by  bringing  colleagues  and 
pupils  from  abroad.  William  James  became 
known  to  London  philosophers  by  spending  a  good 
part  of  a  "  Sabbatical  Year  "  in  our  metropolis. 
He  appeared  early  in  the  eighties  at  our  "  Scratch 
Eight  "  gatherings — a  dinner  followed  by  a  dis- 
cussion. We  took  to  one  another,  I  think,  in  a 
quiet,  steadfast  fashion.  Of  Th.  Ribot,  editor  of 
the  Revue  Philosophique,  I  formed  a  delightful 
impression  at  Oxford.  He  had  considerable  taste 
for  architecture,  and  to  his  enthusiastic  praise 
of  Oxford  buildings  I  owe  part  of  my  own 
admiration  for  them. 

Foreigners  would  look  in  upon  me  now  and 
again.  Sometimes  it  was  a  colleague  who  had 
chanced  upon  some  of  my  writings.  At  another 
if  was  a  student  who  had  heard  of  me.  My 
habit    of    spending    the    summer    holiday    abroad 


222  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

facilitated  this  intercourse  with  men  of  other 
countries.  It  was  on  the  Dovrefjeld  that  by  a 
happy  chance  I  met  Edward  Westermarck,  who'se 
friendship  has  since  been  for  me  one  of  the  good 
things  of  Ufe.  Another  foreigner  destined  to  write 
a  notable  book  in  English  was  Richard  Wallas- 
chek.  To  a  knowledge  of  the  evolution  of  music 
he  added  considerable  skill  as  a  pianist,  and  our 
Broad  wood  "  boudoir  grand  " — chosen,  as  I  was 
proud  to  tell  my  visitors,  by  Walter  Bache — ^never 
responded  more  joyously  to  the  touch  of  the  artist 
than  when  he  played  Delibes. 

Among  younger  men  from  other  shores  who 
honoured  me  by  calling  upon  me  and  attending 
some  of  my  lectures  were  one  or  two  intelligent 
Japanese  students.  Their  untiring  curiosity  about 
our  English  ways,  and  their  ingenuity  in  trying 
to  adapt  them  to  their  own  people,  were  very 
engaging.  I  remember  that  in  a  talk  with  two 
or  three  of  them  about  the  state  of  religious  belief 
in  Japan,  the  idea  was  broached  on  their  side  that, 
since  the  Japanese  religion  was  founded  on  an- 
cestor worship,  the  Positivist  religion  might  with 
advantage  be  introduced  into  Japan  as  a  creed 
for  the  more  enlightened.  I  encouraged  their 
idea,  and  induced  them  to  visit  the  Positivist 
church,  and  to  make  acquaintance  with  Frederic 
Harrison.  Whether  their  ingenious  proposal  was 
ever  put  into  practice  I  have  not  heard. 

Nor  was  my  new  social  world  confined  to  pro- 
fessional and  literary  acquaintance.  I  was  often 
attracted  to  men  and  women  who  had  little,  if 
anything,    of   bookishness,    and    was   glad    enough 


VARIOUS   FRIENDS  228 

to  welcome  a  really  fine  nature  untouched  by 
the  artificialities  that  are  apt  to  characterize 
literary  and  academic  folk.  Wherefore  a  strong 
liking  grew  up  for  a  man  of  business  like  Max 
Maas ;  who  attracted  me  almost  as  much  by  his 
bonhomie  and  large-heartedness  as  by  his  superb 
violin-playing — an  unequalled  achievement  for  an 
amateur,  so  far  as  my  experience  attests. 

Among  my  intimates  I  counted  more  than  one 
artist.  Briton  Riviere  had,  in  addition  to  his 
devotion  to  art,  enjoyed  an  Oxford  career,  and 
I  prized  the  frequent  opportunities  I  enjoyed,  both 
at  Hampstead  and  in  the  country,  of  increasing 
my  knowledge  of  him  and  his  family. 

Death  is  ever  at  work  making  ugly  breaches 
in  the  social  world  we  are  so  busy  constructing. 
My  little  band  of  friends  had  to  reinforce  itself, 
so  relentlessly  was  its  number  decimated  in  the 
eighties  and  later.  Close  upon  the  footsteps  of 
G.  H.  Lewes,  George  Eliot,  and  W.  K.  Chfford, 
there  passed  out  of  sight  two  of  my  most  valued 
friends,  Charles  Darwin  and  Stanley  Jevons.  In 
the  sudden  death  of  the  latter  from  drowning  on 
the  Sussex  coast  I  lost  almost  an  older  brother, 
so  unfailingly  kind,  so  wisely  helpful  had  he  been 
from  the  first.  His  good  sense  and  his  happy, 
genial  temper  made  him  especially  valuable  to 
one  whose  spirit  was  apt  to  be  clogged  with 
doubts,  if  not  also  with  fears.  My  acquaintance 
with  Darwin  had  been  too  short  to  allow  of  a 
close  friendship.  Yet  since  the  Priory  days  I 
had  met  him  more  than  once  in  his  own  home 
at  Down,  when  the  Sunday  Tramps  were  allowed, 


224  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

in  spite  of  muddy  boots,  to  drop  in  at  the 
tea-hour. 

In  the  second  half  of  the  eighties  I  lost  my  most 
affectionate  and  most  patient  friend,  my  father, 
well  stricken  in  years.  Among  later  companiojis, 
Edmund  Gurney  and  Colonel  Osborn  disappeared 
at  this  time.  I  had  been  brought  closer  to  Gurney 
by  the  meetings  of  our  Scratch  Eight  and  other 
social  opportunities,  and  still  more  by  my  deep 
interest  in  his  great  book  "  The  Power  of  Sound." 
I  reviewed  it — in  Mind,  I  think — and,  while  criti- 
cizing it  under  some  of  its  aspects,  expressed  my 
deep  admiration  for  it.  Looking  to-day  upon  the 
ponderous  tome,  as  it  seems  to  weigh  down  my 
bookshelf,  I  recognize  that  it  is  one  of  the  works- 
such  as  I,  too,  perhaps,  am  not  guiltless  of  having 
produced — which  are  too  large,  too  exhaustive, 
and  too  impartial  to  arrest  the  eye  of  any 
but  a  very  few  specially  interested  and  patient 
students.  For  these,  however,  it  will  remain  a 
monumental  achievement,  by  far  the  ablest  attempt 
yet  made  to  solve  the  complex  riddle  of  music. 
During  his  last  years,  while  he  was  devoting  his 
powers  to  Psychical  Research,  I  saw  less  of  him. 
I  regretted  the  withdrawal  of  his  fine  powers  from 
scientific  work,  as  commonly  understood,  but 
knew  that  he,  like  Goethe,  was  still  bent  on  the 
quest,  mehr  Licht ! 

I  think  none  of  my  losses  during  this  decade 
distressed  me  more  than  that  of  Colonel  Osborn. 
He  lived  near  enough  to  us  for  a  neighbourly 
morning  Icall,  and  his  figure  reappears  to  my 
memory  as  it  used  to  move  up  our  long  strip  of 


COLONEL   OSBORN  225 

garden,  slowly  and  with  a  slight  swaying  action, 
that  always  seemed  to  me  to  express  a  gentle, 
conciliatory  temper.  The  morning  visit  would 
sometimes  sm'prise  us  still  sitting  at  the  break- 
fast-table. He  always  brought  with  him  his 
knowing  little  smile,  half  enigmatic  like  that  of 
the  Jocunda,  though  far  more  winsome,  seeming 
to  hint  at  a  contentment  born  of  a  happy  solution 
of  the  world's  riddle.  He  was  accompanied  by 
one  or  both  of  his  young  daughters  and  by  one  or 
more  of  his  dogs. 

His  care  of  a  number  of  canine  pets  greatly 
impressed  one  who  was  a  keeper  of  dogs  at  more 
than  arm's  length.  His  affection  for  his  quad- 
ruped proteges  was  just  an  extension  of  his  pre- 
dominant impulse  to  create  about  him  a  happy, 
smiling  world.  He  was  far  too  much  of  a  gentle- 
man to  drive  away  a  stray  dog  that  flattered  him 
by  taking  a  fancy  to  his  house,  and  so  his  little 
pack  was  apt  to  grow  to  quite  imposing  dimensions. 
Of  their  having  affections  akin  to  our  own  he  never 
doubted.  This  came  out  clearly  in  a  story  that 
he  told  us  of  a  dog's  remorse.  It  was  a  Sunday 
evening,  and  the  family,  having  supped  on  a  cold 
chicken,  had  returned  to  the  drawing-room.  Shortly 
afterwards  one  of  the  dogs  came  creeping  into 
the  room  carrying  something  in  his  mouth.  In 
a  shame-faced  manner  he  made  straight  for  the 
sofa — where,  if  I  remember  aright,  his  mistress 
was  sitting — and  deposited  his  burden  under  it. 
This  turned  out  to  be  the  remains  of  the  Sunday 
chicken.  Examination  showed  that  he  had 
scrupulously  abstained  from  eating  these  remains. 

16 


226  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

Osborn's  explanation  of  the  creature's  behaviour 
was  that,  under  the  momentary  impetus  of  a  brute 
instinct,  he  had  made  a  raid  upon  the  chicken 
and  dragged  it  to  the  ground,  but  that  at  this  stage 
a  prick  of  conscience  had  not  only  inhibited  the 
carnal  impulse,  but  had  driven  him  to  get  as  near 
as  he  could  to  a  confession  of  guilt  and  an  act  of 
expiation. 

Osborn's  humour  was  a  spring  that  rarely  ceased 
flowing,  whether  he  was  expressing  himself  in 
speech  or  in  writing.  I  have  preserved  a  jocose 
letter  from  him  setting  forth  the  charms  of 
Hunstanton,  to  which  place  I  thought  of  taking 
my  family.  "  The  bathing,"  he  writes,  "  is  so 
safe  that  people  desirous  of  committing  suicide 
never  go  to  Hunstanton  .  .  .  swimmers  are 
driven  quite  infuriate  from  their  inability  to  get 
out  of  their  depth.  .  .  .  They  have  to  carry  their 
provisions  with  tiiem  and  to  lunch  in  mid-sea." 
He  was  well  read  and  finely  discriminating  in 
English  poetry,  and  would  often  deliglit  his  com- 
panions by  breaking  out  into  a  quotation  from 
Shelley  or  some  other  classic.  It  was  his  literary 
gifts  in  part  which  endeared  him  to  his  friends, 
who  included  Shadworth  Hodgson  and  Briton 
Riviere.  To  his  modesty  must  be  ascribed  the 
circumstance  that  only  a  few  of  his  acquaintance 
were  aware  of  his  learning ;  for  he  was  one  of 
those  Anglo-Indian  soldiers  who  manage  to  develop 
something  of  a  scholar's  knowledge  of  the  Oriental 
world — in  his  case  the  histor}^  of  Islam. 

When  I  knew  him  he  was  a  Radical  in  politics. 
He    contributed   articles   to    the   newspapers,    and 


COLONEL   OSBORN  227 

would  also  take  part  in  our  Hampstead  discussions 
on  socialism  and  other  matters.  But  I  think 
that,  though  a  brave  soldier,  he  lacked  that  slight 
dash  of  ferocity  which  seems  to  be  needed  to-day 
for  a  keen  and  effective  kind  of  political  debate. 
I  liked  him  better  as  a  half-hmnorous  writer  on 
his  favourite  pastime,  lawn-tennis.  His  remarks 
in  a  manual  on  the  subject  on  the  ways  of  the  duffer 
are  still  good  reading.  I  may  add  that  to  Osborn 
I  owe  any  proficiency  that  I  ever  attained  in  this 
delightful  pastime.  He  died  before  he  was  fifty, 
whilst  playing  his  beloved  game  with  some  well- 
known  expert,  on  a  warm  spring  day.  A  single 
exclamation  of  surprise,  and  the  game  of  life  was 
over.  He  once  told  me  half  humorously  that  he 
thought  doctors  a  quite  unnecessary  class,  and 
his  sudden  death  saved  him  from  the  humiliation 
of  having  to  admit  himself  in  the  wrong. 


CHAPTER    XII 

SLACKENING    THE   PACE 

Early  in  1892  my  largest  work,  "  The  Human 
Mind,"  was  published.  I  began  it  as  a  new  and 
enlarged  edition  of  the  "  Outlines,"  but  soon 
found  that  it  was  getting  too  big  for  that.  William 
James,  more  than  once  "  a  friend  in  need,"  ad- 
vised me  to  make  an  independent  and  advanced 
textbook  of  it.  I  accepted  the  suggestion,  and 
William  James  christened  the  book  "  The  Human 
Mind."  The  book  won  for  me  approving  words. 
Henry  Sidgwick  wrote  :  "  I  hope  to  profit  by  it. 
I  have  a  great  respect  for  two  volumes."  From 
Ribot  I  received  the  message :  "  Grace  a  vous 
I'Angleterre  possedera  un  Traite  qui  puisse  etre 
mis  en  parallel  avec  ceux  de  I'Amerique,"  and  Dr. 
Hugo  Miinsterberg  (then  of  Freiburg,  Baden) 
assured  me  :  "  Sie  haben  ein  Werk  allerersten 
Ranges  geschaffen." 

In  the  spring  of  the  same  year  Croom  Robertson 
resigned  the  Grote  Chair  of  the  Philosophy  of 
Mind  and  Logic  at  University  College.  This 
followed  upon  the  death  of  his  wife,  and  he 
himself  died  three  months  after  his  resignation. 
He    had    long    suffered    from    a    painful    disease 

223 


THE   GROTE   CHAIR  229 

which  sometimes  prostrated  him  for  a  week  or 
more  together,  so  that  he  had  to  count  upon  a 
possible  substitute  who  could  be  called  on  at 
short  notice.  I  came  to  his  relief  as  far  as  I 
could.  It  was  not  easy  to  take  up  the  thread 
of  another  man's  lectures  on  psychology,  or  even 
logic,  after  exchanging  but  a  few  words  with 
him  as  he  lay  in  his  bed.  And  then  I  happened 
to  know  that  Robertson  was  a  strikingly  original 
and  popular  teacher.  I  had  sometimes  to  go 
down  to  Gower  Street  in  the  afternoon  to  find 
on  student  faces  the  gloom  of  disappointment 
added  to  that  of  a  foggy  London  ;  and  I  needed 
all  my  pluck  to  confront  them. 

I  stood  for  the  vacant  Chair,  and  was  elected. 
Warm  congratulations  poured  in,  and  I  realized 
that  mine  had  seemed  a  hard  case  to  more  than 
I  knew  of.  No  message  was  sweeter  than  that  of 
the  warmest  and  most  congenial  of  my  Hampstead 
friends— Professor  (now  Sir  Alexander)  Kennedy. 
Whilst  I  had  been  doing  Robertson's  work,  both 
he  and  his  sympathetic  wife  had  seemed  to  regard 
me  as  already  belonging  to  the  college. 

The  news  of  my  appointment  came  to  me,  I 
think,  when  I  was  in  Dublin,  taking  part  in  cele- 
brating the  tercentenary  of  Trinity  College.  This 
was  a  truly  festive  time  for  me,  and  I  threw  my- 
self heartily  into  the  banquetings,  and  even  into 
the  ball  at  Leinster  Hall.  I  saw  many  new  faces 
of  interest  among  the  college  people  as  w^ell  as 
among  the  English  and  foreign  guests.  No  figures 
struck  me  as  having  quite  so  much  of  the  look 
of    scholarly    distinction    as   those    of  Lecky— still 


230  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

bearing  his  unusual  height  perfectly  erect — and 
James  Martineau,  whose  stalwart  form  was  bent 
a  little  as  he  moved  about  leaning  on  his  daughter's 
arm.  The  Dublin  spectacle  was,  as  might  be 
expected,  a  more  gorgeous  one  than  the  Halle 
ceremony  ;  though  I  missed  the  presence  of  the 
students  who  v/ere  so  interesting  a  feature'  of 
the  German  commemoration.  Nevertheless,  I 
enjoyed  it  from  beginning  to  end.  The  Provost 
(Dr.  Salmon)  charmed  me,  and  a  month  or  two 
afterwards  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  him  at 
a  Swiss  hotel,  and  watching  one  whom  I  had  taken 
to  be  only  a  brilliant  mathematician  set  out  on 
his  morning  walk  with  a  volume  of  ^schylus  or 
Euripides  in  his  hand. 

From  the  academic  gaieties  of  Dublin  I  had  to 
return  to  London  to  look  after  the  International 
Congress  of  Psychology,  which  was  to  be  held 
there  in  August.  In  the  first  Congress  held  in 
Paris  much  prominence  was  given  to  Psychical 
Research  and  other  allied  investigations  into  the 
more  occult  regions  of  mind.  Henry  Sidgwick, 
who  was  to  be  the  president  at  the  London  Con- 
gress, made  an  effort  to  give  to  what  he  called 
"  orthodox  psychology  "  a  more  adequate  repre- 
sentation. To  this  end  he  undertook  a  journey 
through  Germany,  Austria,  and  other  countries, 
calling  upon  distinguished  psychologists  like 
Ebbinghaus  and  Hering.  He  asked  me  to  be  one 
of  the  two  secretaries  of  the  Congress,  taking 
special  charge  of  the  orthodox  branch,  while  the 
other  secretary,  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  was  to  look 
after  the   Psychical   Research   department. 


THE   CONGRESS   OF  PSYCHOLOGY  231 

The  work  was  pretty  heavy,  involving  a  good 
deal  of  correspondence  and  arrangement  of  busi- 
ness beforehand,  followed  by  a  week  of  unrelieved 
high  tension — dealing  with  the  readers  of  papers 
and  other  guests,  arranging  for  the  several 
sessions,  the  printing  of  precis,  and  other  matters. 
But,  for  all  the  heat  of  those  August  days,  I 
thoroughly  enjoyed  the  experience.  Even  when 
a  nasty  contretemps  would  surprise  me,  I  generally 
managed  to  get  something  good  out  of  the  dis- 
appointment. One  morning,  just  before  the  lunch 
hour,  I  found  that  Lombroso,  the  famous  Italian 
alienist,  was  unable  to  come  to  London  to  read 
a  paper  which  he  had  sent  me.  I  asked 
Charles  Richet  to  help  me  out  of  my  difficulty. 
He  kindly  looked  over  the  manuscript  during  the 
luncheon  hour,  and  at  the  afternoon  session  gave 
an  extempore  resume  of  its  contents,  turning  over 
its  pages  in  an  easy,  familiar  way,  and  improving 
not  only  the  French,  but  the  literary  form  of 
the  paper. 

It  was  the  only  congress  I  ever  attended,  and 
I  made  the  best  of  the  opportunity.  Now  and 
again  it  may  have  been  momentarily  confusing 
to  be  asked  questions  in  French  and  in  German 
at  the  same  moment ;  but  on  the  whole  I  felt 
glad  to  furbish  up  my  rather  rusty  linguistics. 

The  gathering  had  an  ample  decorative  fringe 
of  social  functions — dinners  and  receptions :  a 
circumstance  which,  while  it  made  inroads  on 
the  sleep  of  a  Hampsteadian,  added  another  kind 
of  keen  enjoyment.  It  was  delightful  to  meet 
men  whose  names  had  long  been  known  to  me, 


232  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

such  as  W.  Preyer,  Alfred  Binet,  Ebbinghaus,  and 
Paul  Janet,  especially  when  they  were  "  jolly  good 
fellows,"  like  Delbceuf  of  the  University  of  Liege. 
Not  the  least  of  my  pleasures  was  to  welcome 
my  Berlin  teacher  and  host,  Von  Helmholtz. 

The  Congress  over,  I  rushed  away  to  my  be- 
loved Switzerland :  this  time  to  the  Weisshorn 
Hotel  in  the  Val  d'Anniviers.  I  seemed  for  the 
first  time  to  be  sounding  the  depths  of  peace 
when,  on  the  morning  after  my  arrival,  I  walked 
with  friends  under  the  spikes  of  the  Rochers  de 
Nava  and  along  the  high  path  to  Zinal,  cooling 
my  eyes  and  brain  on  the  whiteness  of  the  group 
of  mountains  which  rises  up  behind  Zinal  like  a 
marble  palace  shutting  in  the  valley. 

My  visit  to  the  Val  d'Anniviers  was  the  first  of 
a  series  of  sojourns.  The  site  of  the  Weisshorn 
Hotel,  some  7,600  feet  above  the  sea,  had  power- 
ful attractions  for  the  lover  of  seclusion  and 
of  mountains.  A  number  of  easy  walks  to  cols 
and  peaks  of  about  10,000  feet  made  u§.  feel  near 
the  giants.  The  flora  was  rich  and  varied,  adding 
its  colour  to  that  of  the  Blue  Lake  under  Bella 
Tola.  The  roughly  designed  building  which  we 
called  our  "  hotel "  looked  at  first  repellent — 
like  barracks,  as  one  of  us  observed.  Yet  if 
our  quarters  were  plain  enough,  we  knew  how  to 
make  the  house  warm  on  cold,  rainy  days.  The 
seclusion  drew  a  number  of  interesting  visitors, 
mostly  English,  including  some  well-known  medical 
men  and  botanists.  The  altitude  offered  us  some 
novel  experiences.  It  was  strange  to  find  our- 
selves in  the  middle  of  August  snowed  up,   and 


VAL  D'ANNIVIERS  233 

extemporizing  a  snowball  battle  between  the 
sexes.  Very  lovely  was  the  reappearance  of  the 
delicate  Alpine  petals,  as  they  seemed  to  carve 
out  in  the  snow  little  cuplike  holes,  which  helped 
them  to  breathe  again.  Yet  more  wonderful  was 
the  cloud-scenery.  To  be  above  the  clouds  and 
peep  down  under  them  into  some  valley  where 
the  sun  was  making  a  lovely  mosaic  of  bright 
colour,  was  a  delight  which  never  lost  its  freshness. 
In  the  late  evening  hour  we  might  find  ourselves 
looking  down  upon  a  floor  of  cloud  whitened  by 
the  moonlight.  It  was  easy  to  imagine  oneself 
gazing  upon  a  white  sea,  and  the  illusion  was 
supported  by  the  semblance  of  dark  promontories 
running  out  into  the  whiteness,  and,  what  still 
more  sustained  the  illusion,  the  appearance  of  a 
lighthouse  on  one  of  the  promontories  supplied 
by  a  light  from  some  hotel  far  away  below  us.  At 
our  height  we  seemed  nearer  not  only  to  the 
giants  of  earth,  but  to  the  starry  firmament.  A 
telescope  was  put  up  outside  the  entrance  door, 
which  seemed  to  bring  us  much  closer  to  the 
planets  and  their  satellites. 

The  finest  feature  to  me  in  our  lofty  outlook 
was  the  snow-cap  of  a  part  of  the  Diablerets.  It 
took  the  form  of  a  cradle,  and  we  liked  to  think, 
in  the  childish  way,  that  perhaps,  when  no  mortal 
eye  was  looking,  some  tired  angel  bearing  a 
message  from  heaven  to  earth  might  rest  there, 
throwing  herself  upon  the  cool,  spotless  sheet 
of  snow. 

Exciting  occurrences  w^ould  come  to  break  the 
stillness  of  our  eerie.     Sometimes  it  was  a  stubborn 


234  MY   LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

lady  Alpinist,  who  insisted  on  walking  back  to 
Zinal  when  our  landlord  prophesied  fog ;  from 
which  foolish  over-confidence  issued  an  Iliad  of 
evils,  that  fortunately  just  stopped  short  of 
the    calamity   of   a   death   from  exposure. 

At  another  time  the  excitement  had  a  merrier 
note.  One  evening  our  landlord,  who  bore  an 
Italian  name,  announced  that  his  cellar  was 
empty.  We  insisted  upon  going  down  to  verify 
this  announcement,  and  to  our  delight  discovered 
a  good  supply  of  "  vino  d'Asti  spumante."  We 
got  him  to  supply  us  with  the  wine  at  a  reduced 
price,  and  thus  our  return  laden  with  bottles 
became  a  sort  of  joyous  Bacchanalian  rout. 
E.  D.  J.  Wilson,  whom  I  had  met  twenty  years 
before  at  Dr.  Chapman's  house,  took  a  prominent 
part  in  this  raid. 

As  the  snov/ball-fight  suggests,  the  sharp 
mountain  air  made  us  surprisingly  vigorous. 
We  should  have  shocked  a  punctiliously  correct 
observer  who  had  happened  to  see  us  go  forth  for 
a  day's  walk  protected  with  towels  over  our  heads. 
Alfred  Marks,  the  oldest  and  one  of  the  most 
stalwart  of  our  group,  took  the  lead,  his  well-knit, 
upright  figure  looking,  as  one  of  the  lady  pedes- 
trians put  it,  "  the  very  image  of  Fate."  The 
last  time  I  was  at  the  Weisshorn  I  saw  him 
piling  up  stones  into  a  conical  gendarme  to  show 
visitors  the  quickest  way  dovv^n  to  St.  Luc. 

I  found  it  a  good  plan  when  visiting  Swit- 
zerland to  stay  from  mid- July  to  mid-August  at 
the  Weisshorn  Hotel,  and  then  try  a  little  walk- 
ing   tour    into    some    frequented    place     like    the 


UNIVERSITY   COLLEGE  235 

Zermatt  or  the  Chamonix  Valley,  catching  it  just 
after  the  crowd  had  begun  to  melt  av/ay. 

My  work  at  University  College  naturally  acquired 
a  nevv'  interest  for  me  now  that  I  was  officially 
placed  on  the  teaching  staff.  The  classes  were  not 
large,  and  tended  to  grow  smaller,  as  philosophy, 
from  having  been  a  compulsory  subject  for  arts 
students,  was  gradually  thrust  back  to  be  one 
of  an  optional  group  of  subjects.  Fortunately, 
classes  were  open  to  women,  who  numbered  a 
good  half  of  my  students.  Science  students,  too, 
were  able  to  take  the  subject,  and  I  knov^^  that 
some  of  my  colleagues,  notably  Sir  W.  Ramsay, 
would  advise  their  students  to  broaden  the 
curriculum  by  taking  up  logic  and  psychology. 
The  smallness  of  the  class  was  particularly  de- 
pressing in  the  case  of  the  more  advanced  courses 
of  lectures.  Yet  there  was  a  peculiar  kind  of 
pleasure  in  lecturing  to  a  small  number  of  appre- 
ciative students  on  a  subject  like  Kant's  "Critic." 
Some  of  these  advanced  students  were  keen-witted 
men,  capable  of  putting  a  poser  to  their  professor. 
I  recall  a  Hindoo  whose  logical  work  could,  I 
think,  be  compared  in  quality  with  that  sent  in 
at  the  Moral  Science  Tripos  at  Cambridge.  These 
rare  encounters  with  genuinely  inquiring  minds 
were  the  highest  reward  of  my  teaching.  How- 
ever small  my  class,  it  never  d¥/indled  to  a  single 
student,  as  it  once  did  when  I  was  lecturing  at 
a  ladies'  college,  when,  of  course,  the  student 
was   duly   chaperoned. 

Later  on,  as  the  long-discussed  proposal  of  a 
Teaching    University    approached    realization,    the 


236  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

administrative  work  of  the  college  began  to  take 
up  more  and  more  of  my  working  hours.  At 
one  time  I  was  the  Chairman  of  one  Board  of 
Studies  and  a  member  of  two  other  Boards  ;  and 
the  frequent  meetings,  together  with  the  journeys 
to  South  Kensington,  Gower  Street,  and  King's 
College,  made  considerable  inroads  upon  my 
working  day.  The  many  years  of  strenuous  work, 
aided  by  the  racket  of  the  railway  and  bus 
journeys,  began  to  tell,  and  I  made  an  attempt 
(which  I  hardly  expected  to  be  successful)  to  get 
a  Readership  in  Psychology  at  Oxford.  As  it 
was,  I  had  to  retire  much  sooner  than  I  need 
have  done  had  my  professorial  lot  fallen  in  the 
comparatively  peaceful  retreat  of  one  of  our  old 
university  towns. 

The  final  goal  of  my  endeavours,  the  Grote 
professorship — though  I  was,  I  fear,  ungrateful 
enough  now  and  again  to  think  of  it  in  the 
words  of  an  old  poet  as  "  but  a  chair  " — secured 
me,  no  doubt,  a  wider  recognition.  I  t)egan  now 
to  be  talked  about,  and  tried  to  take  these 
attentions  in  the  right  spirit. 

To  popular  recognitions  there  were  added  those 
of  experts.  As  early  as  the  middle  of  the  eighties 
honours  began  to  fall  upon  me  softly  and  un- 
alarmingly.  Richet  wrote  inviting  me  to  be- 
come a  corresponding  member  of  a  new  Societe 
de  Psychologic  physiologique ;  and  soon  after- 
wards Spencer  Baynes  of  St.  Andrews  wrote  to 
say  that  the  Senatus  of  his  University  had  awarded 
me  the  honorary  degree  of  LL.D.  To  this  last 
courteous   overture   I  fear   I   sent   but   a   churlish 


RECOGNITION  237 

response,  merely  saying  that  I  should  be  ready 
to  accept  the  honour  provided  it  could  be  given 
in  absentia.  To  my  surprise,  the  condition  was 
accepted,  and  I  became  a  learned  Doctor  malgre 
moi.  As  this  off-hand  behaviour  suggests,  I 
attached  but  little  value  to  titles  and  dignities 
in  general.  I  knew  too  much  about  the  intriguing 
and  log-rolling  which  are  apt  to  go  with  the  be- 
stowal of  these  honours  ;  and  the  Radicalism  of 
my  early  training  had  left  deep  down  in  the  sub- 
structure of  my  being  a  deposit  of  that  tough  sort 
of  pride  which  looks  on  all  external  labels  as 
of  very  little  value.  Where,  however,  as  in 
Richet's  proposal,  the  recognition  of  an  expert 
was  offered  me,  I  accepted  it  gratefully.  I  should 
have  done  the  same  when,  a  little  later,  I  was 
invited  to  become  President  of  the  Neurological 
Society,  had  I  not  felt  that  it  would  be  much 
better  for  the  society  if  a  medical  member  were 
appointed  to  the  office. 

To  complete  my  list  of  attentions,  I  may  add 
that,  towards  the  end  of  the  nineties,  I  received 
two  flattering  invitations  from  America.  The 
Professors  and  Fellows  of  Yale  University  asked 
me  to  attend  the  two-hundredth  anniversary  of 
the  founding  of  Yale  College  and  to  receive  the 
honorary  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws.  This  invita- 
tion was  backed  by  a  kind  letter  from  my  col- 
league. Professor  Ladd,  whose  work  in  psychology 
I  held  in  high  esteem.  To  my  great  regret,  I 
was  not  able  to  avail  myself  of  the  invitation. 

The  other  voice  of  recognition  from  across  the 
Atlantic  had  a  less  academic  ring.     It  was  a  letter 


238  MY  IJFE   AND   FRIENDS 

from  a  New  York  attorney,  informing  me  that 
about  thirty  lawyers  in  that  city  interested  in 
philosophy  and  psychology  had  formed  a  club, 
which  they  proposed  to  call  "  The  James  Sully 
Philosophical  and  Psychological  Club  of  Rochester." 
Later  on,  my  transatlantic  admirers  sent  me  an 
account  of  their  proceedings.  The  perfect  spon- 
taneity of  the  proposal  disarmed  my  general  ob- 
jection to  figure  in  this  fashion.  I  felt,  too,  that 
this  little  philosophic  society  hidden  away  from 
the  gaze  of  the  world  had  the  charm  of  something 
retired  and  almost  bashful.  These  New  York 
lawyers,  escaping  from  the  commotion  of  a  great 
city  to  study  philosophy,  were  for  me  kinsmen 
of  my  much-esteemed  London  friend,  Shadworth 
Hodgson,  who  for  years  in  a  street  off  Regent 
Street  led  the  life  of  a  philosophic  recluse,  cheered 
by  the  visits  of  a  few  kindred  spirits. 

Imperious  as  were  the  demands  of  my  college 
work,  they  did  not  prevent  me  from  setting  up 
one  more  book  on  the  stocks.  I  had  for  some 
time  been  attracted  to  the  fascinating  puzzle  of 
the  child's  mind,  and  the  beginnings  of  something 
like  a  serious  scientific  study  of  it  had  been  made 
by  W.  Preyer  in  Germany  and  by  others.  My 
psychological  leanings  led  me  to  watch  the  un- 
folding of  the  infant  consciousness  in  my  own 
children.  Friends,  too,  were  most  kind  in  sending 
me  observations  which  they  had  made  on  their 
children. 

A  point  of  peculiar  interest  to  me  in  connection 
with  these  researches  was  the  tracing  of  an  affinity 
between  the  ideas  and  impulses  of  the  child  and 


STUDIES   OF   CHILDHOOD  289 

those  of  backward  races.  In  working  out  the 
analogies  between  them,  I  found  it  necessary 
to  look  more  closely  into  ethnological  records  of 
the  mental  peculiarities  of  savage  peoples,  and 
also  to  seek  information  from  anthropologists  like 
Professor  E.  B.  Tylor.  This  part  of  my  work 
brought  me  one  delightful  experience,  the  making 
of  acquaintance  with  General  Pitt-Rivers.  I 
wrote  to  him  respecting  some  drawings  by  savages, 
of  which  (I  heard)  he  had  made  a  collection. 
He  very  kindly  invited  me  to  visit  him  at  his 
country  house  near  Salisbury.  His  drawings 
proved  to  be  full  of  instruction  for  me.  It  was 
no  ordinary  pleasure  to  be  shown  the  museum, 
picture-gallery,  band-stand,  and  other  arrange- 
ments which  this  inventive  and  large-hearted 
country  squire  had  set  up  as  a  means  at  once  of 
educating  and  of  entertaining  his  tenants.  As 
he  drove  me  round  the  grounds  I  could  not  but 
ask  myself  how  much  more  cordial  the  relations 
between  the  classes  and  the  masses  in  rural 
England  might  have  been  to-day  if  more  of  the 
squirearchy  had  bestirred  themselves,  like  my 
enterprising  host,  to  engage  the  interest  of 
their  tenantry  by  introducing  among  them  the 
rudiments  of  higher  culture. 

I  indicated  this  turning  of  my  mind  childwards 
by  publishing  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  an  article 
on  "  The  New  Study  of  Children,"  and,  shortly 
afterv/ards,  by  producing  a  book  of  "  Studies  of 
Childhood."  It  won,  as  I  had  hoped,  a  consider- 
able popularity,  not  only  among  psychologists, 
teachers,  and  parents,  but  among  men  of  letters. 


240  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

It  was  pleasant  to  receive  favourable  words  about 
it  from  men  like  W.  E.  Gladstone,  Leslie  Stephen, 
and  George  Meredith. 

Yet  my  excursions  into  the  field  of  child-study 
were  by  no  means  wholly  enjoyable.     They   once 
brought  upon  me  a  bit  of  painful  discipline  which 
I  hope  may  have   contributed  to  the   "  making  " 
of  my  soul.     I  was  invited  to  give  an  address  to 
an    educational    audience    at    Manchester    on    the 
methods    of    child-study.     I    thought    I    had    said 
enough    about    the    more    attractive    side    of    the 
study,   so   I  now  confined  myself  to  urging  upon 
parents   and  teachers  the   importance  of  adopting 
in   their   observations    as   methodical   a   procedure 
as   possible.     The  next   day   I  travelled   south.     1 
chose  an  empty  compartment  and  tucked  myself 
up  in  a  corner  with  a  newspaper.     Shortly  before 
the  train  started  two  or  three  women  and  a  man 
entered,    and    I    presently    heard    them    discussing 
my    last    evening's    address.     They    seemed    to    be 
sadly  disappointed — to    judge   from   scraps  of  the 
conversation   that   reached   my  ear,   such   as    "So 
uninspiring  !  "     "So    different    from    his    book  !  " 
I  kept  the  paper  well  over  my  face,  but  I  do  not 
think    that    they    once    glanced    in    my    direction. 
The  change  from  the  evening  dress  to  the  travel- 
ling  suit   had    sufficed   to   screen   me.     I   did    not 
once  suspect  them   of  consciously  paying  me  out 
for  sinking  so  low  from  my  earlier  inspiring  level. 
It  was  a  lesson  for  me  on  the  need  of  living  up  to 
one's    reputation.     I    was    seized    with    a    genuine 
feeling  of  shame.     When  a  little  band  of  strangers 
thus  agree  to  blame  you,  it  is  well-nigh  impossible 


ESSAY   ON   LAUGHTER  241 

to  believe  yourself  to  be  quite  blameless :  so 
mightily  does  the  voice  of  the  "  social  self  "  bear 
down  upon  one's  consciousness,  stifling  for  a 
moment  any  self-approving  judgment  that  tries  to 
make  itself  heard.  On  reaching  home  I  wrote  to 
my  kind  Manchester  host,  Sir  Alfred  Hopkinson, 
telling  him  of  my  adventure,  and  in  response  he 
gave  me  some  no  less  amusing  illustrations  of 
how,  when  a  candidate  for  Parliament,  he  over- 
heard not  too  flattering  opinions  of  his  own 
merits.  Such  an  indirect  and  unintentional  bit  of 
instruction  from  others  may  prove  more  salutary 
than  a  well-prepared  admonition. 

I  had  still  one  book  to  write  before  I  relinquished 
office.  The  theme  of  the  child  and  its  ways 
pointed  to  a  relaxation  of  the  more  strenuous  work 
of  writing  textbooks  ;  and  now  I  further  relaxed 
the  strain  by  choosing  laughter  as  my  subject. 
The  influences  of  early  years  helped  to  foster  the 
habit  of  ruminating  on  this  merry  chapter  in  the 
book  of  human  experience.  My  recent  quizzings 
of  the  mental  behaviour  of  children,  and  still  more 
of  that  of  savages,  had  helped  to  focus  my  atten- 
tion upon  the  subject.  I  thoroughly  enjoyed  the 
writing  of  the  book ;  though  it  was  pronounced 
by  some  to  be  too  heavy  and  too  exhaustive  of 
its  theme  ;  by  others,  to  be  written  in  an  unsuit- 
ably serious  vein ;  the  critics  being  quite  unaware 
that  a  thinker  of  the  laughing  Latin  race,  even 
if  he  be  a  Henri  Bergson,  is  half  expected  to 
produce  a  serious  essay  on  "  Le  Rire." 

This  stimulating  critic  and  thinker  honoured 
me  by  writing  a  particularly  discriminating  criti- 

17 


242  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

cism  of  my  "  Essay  on  Laughter."  It  touched 
me  by  its  generosity,  as  I  reflected  how  badly  in 
the  same  volume  I  had  treated  his  own  theory  of 
the  subject.  Then  there  v»^ere  two  favourable 
notices  of  it  in  the  feuilleton  of  the  Journal  des 
Dehats  by  Emile  Faguet,  to  which  George  Mere- 
dith called  my  attention.  These  French  appre- 
ciations m.ade  me  feel  a  bit  surer  that  it  had 
been  worth  while  to  vvrite  the  book. 

Its  appearance  Vv^as  greeted  by  one  journal  at 
least  with  a  friendly  welcome  :  the  editor  of  the 
Daily  Mail  showed  his  magnanimity  by  trying  to 
push  the  fortunes  of  a  book  written  by  one  of 
the  negligible  small  fraternity  of  Pro-Boers.  He 
covered  one  whole  side  of  a  leaf  with  a  number  of 
skilfully  executed  caricatures  of  Mr.  Balfour  and 
other  notabilities  in  the  act  of  laughing  :  an  exer- 
cise in  which  my  book  had  bade  its  readers  to 
indulge  more  freely.  This  bit  of  luck,  my  friends 
assured  me,  would  give  the  newly  launched  literary 
ship  a  splendid  send-off ;  but  I  knew  better.  The 
private  conmients,  too,  on  the  portraits  enter- 
tained me  ;  for  it  was  half  assumed  that  this 
friendly  push  was  due  either  to  a  good  thumping 
advertising  fee  or  to  some  powerful  personal  in- 
fluence. It  is  sad  to  reflect  that  a  certain  kind 
of  journal  is  apt  to  be  misjudged  when  it  has  one 
of  its  rare  mom.ents  of  generosity. 

Amongst  occasional  outside  activities  during  the 
last  years  of  full  work  was  a  very  small  share  in 
the  movement  that  fmally  issued  in  the  founding 
of  the  British  Academy.  In  May  1900,  shortly 
before    the    operation    which    gave    his    friends    a 


THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY  243 

precious,  if  short,  prolongation  of  Iiis  presence, 
Henry  Sidgwick  wrote  to  me  about  a  proposal 
to  form  cither  an  "  Academy  "  (or  "  Society  "), 
or  a  *'  new  section  of  the  Royal  Society,"  to  deal 
with  other  sciences  than  tliose  already  represented 
by  the  latter.  He  asked  me  to  come  with  him 
as  a  representative  of  psychology  to  the  Committee 
of  the  Royal  Society  which  was  now  considering 
the  question.  Less  than  a  month  afterwards  I 
received  another  letter  from  him,  dated  18  Langham 
Street,  where  he  was  lying  after  an  operation. 
I  did  finally  attend  a  Committee  of  the  Royal 
Society,  but,  alas  !  not  with  Henry  Sidgwick.  In 
the  end  the  cry  for  an  academy  prevailed,  and 
so  the  British  Academy  added  a  new  variety  to 
our  learned  institutions. 

I  had  known  nothing  of  the  later  stages  of  the 
movem.ent,  and  felt  free  to  quizz  the  result  in  a 
perfectly  detached  manner.  A  glance  at  the  first 
published  list  of  Fellows  showed  me  how  shrewdly 
Matthew  Arnold  had  forecast  the  lines  which  such 
a  body  would  be  likely  to  follow.  There  was  the 
proper  English  apportionment  of  values  between 
"  social  "  and  official  position  on  the  one  hand, 
and,  on  the  other,  well-recognized  scientific 
achievement.  Concerning  the  mode  of  election 
I  found  it  impossible  to  get  any  information  worth 
naming.  How  the  primum  mobile — ^the  first 
electors  in  a  chain  of  elections — came  into  official 
(or  non-official)  existence  nobody  seemed  to 
know.  Did  they,  I  wondered,  invest  themselves 
or  one  another  with  this  delicate  function  ? 
But   we   must   not,    if   we   would   avoid   laughing, 


244  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

examine    too     curiously     how     such     institutions 
grow  up.^ 

I  should  have  been  perfectly  content  to  smile 
and  afterwards  dismiss  the  Academy  and  its  pro- 
ceedings from  my  thoughts.  It  would  never  have 
occurred  to  me  that  one  might  feel  hurt  at  being 
overlooked  by  what  appeared  to  be  in  its  incep- 
tion a  somehow  self-elected  body  of  this  kind. 
But  I  learned  later  that  my  old  teacher,  Alexander 
Bain,  whose  name  did  not  appear  in  the  list  of 
Fellows,  had  his  last  years  saddened  by  a  sense 
of  the  injury  done  him.  The  oversight  was  cer- 
tainly a  remarkable  one.  He  was  one  of  the  two 
or  three  British  psychologists  of  the  last  century 
who  had  won  a  European  reputation.  He  was 
a  thinker  of  indisputable  originality  and  power, 
who,  while  an  adherent  to  the  English  tradition 
in  philosophy,  struck  out  a  mode  of  investigation 
and  a  manner  of  expression  which  were  all  his 
own.  He  had  the  further  and  very  rare  claim  of 
having  proved  his  devotion  to  philosophy,  not 
only  with  his  pen  but  with  his  purse.  He  had 
financed  Mind  for  some  years  out  of  his  own 
pocket,  at  a  very  considerable  loss  to  himself. 
The  omission  of  his  name  was  made  the  more 
unkind  by  the  circumstance  that  another  Scotch 
veteran.  Professor  Eraser,  the  attractive  expositor 
and  critic  of  Berkeley  and  Locke,  was  included 
in  the  list. 

My  experience  did  not  lead  me  to  regard  Bain 

I  Leslie  Stephen  has  a  quiet  laugh  at  the  idea  of  an  academy 
where  men  of  letters  would  crown  each  other.  See  Maitland's 
"  Life  and  Letters,"  p.  454. 


ALEXANDER  BAIN  245 

as  distinguished  by  moral  heroism.  He  was  a 
violent  partisan,  no  doubt,  and  was  over-zealous 
in  pushing  his  disciples  into  University  Chairs  and 
other  positions  of  influence.  Yet  in  doing  this  he 
had  at  least  one  excuse,  that  he  represented  a 
heterodox  and  unfashionable  school  of  philosophy 
which  was  visibly  losing  ground  in  England,  and 
which  he,  no  doubt,  felt  bound  to  champion  to 
the  uttermost. 

That  he  was  not  a  persona  grata  to  many  of  his 
colleagues  is  at  least  suggested  by  the  omission  of 
his  name  from  the  list  of  Fellows  ;  for  more  than 
one  of  those  whose  names  appeared  in  it  knew  of 
his  reputation  and  of  his  great  importance  in  the 
development  of  modern  psychology.  A  glance  at 
the  writings  of  James  Ward,  William  James,  and 
G.  F.  Stout — to  name  three  of  the  more  promi- 
nent recent  contributors  to  the  science — will 
show  what  a  force  Bain  has  been  in  advancing 
this  department  of  knowledge. 

The  absence  of  Bain's  name  from  a  list  of 
living  English  thinkers  illustrates  the  ill-con- 
sidered and  ultra-empirical  way  in  which  we  are 
wont  to  set  to  work  in  such  cases.  It  would  have 
been  possible  to  ascertain  from  the  body  of  pro- 
fessors and  writers  in  several  subjects  what  men 
they  regarded  as  most  fairly  representing  them. 
And  if  we  had  possessed  the  modesty  of.  some 
nations,  we  could  easily  have  discovered  what 
names  were  best  known  outside  our  own  country. 
But  then  perhaps  the  electors  would  have  found 
it  less  easy  to  indulge  a  British  impulse  to  keep 
"  undesirables  "  out. 


CHAPTER    XIII 

THE    THINNING   OF   THE   RANKS 

The  last  years  of  v/ork  saw  a  great  reduction 
in  the  ranks  of  my  friends.  Among  these  losses 
was  that  of  my  felio>v-tramp,  George  Macdonell, 
a  Scotchman  and  a  iav/yer,  who  seemed  to  me 
to  have  something  akin  to  Louis  Stevenson's 
briglitness  of  outlook  and  elasticity  of  temper. 
At  any  rate,  he  drew  mic  to  him  by  one  of  the 
stronger  and  less  easily  defined  human  attractions. 
1  long  felt  the  absence  of  his  friendly  glance, 
his  cheery  greeting,  and  his  full  candid  laugh. 
A  still  harder  blow  was  Kcnry  Sidgwick's  death 
in  1900.  I  v/as  in  Norway  at  the  time.  I  knew 
when  leaving  England  something  of  the  gravity  of 
his  malady,  but,  as  friends  must  do,  I  hoped  to 
find  him  still  among  us  on  my  return. 

Quite  a  little  company  of  my  old  friends  and 
colleagues  passed  away  during  my  stay  in  Italy 
after  retiring  from  teaching  in  1903.  In  the 
first  year  of  my  sojourn  there  I  read  of  the  death 
of  two  of  my  colleagues  in  educational  work,  Sir 
Joshua  Fitch  and  Canon  Daniel,  whose  names  had 
entwined  themiselves  about  a  long  stretch  of  my 
professional    life ;     and    of    my    first    teachers    in 

246 


THE   THINNING   OF  THE  RANKS  247 

philosophy,  Alexander  Bain  and  Herbert  Spencer. 
I  had  last  seen  Bain  at  Aberdeen  five  years  before, 
as  he  was  walking  in  the  garden,  leaning  on  the 
arm  of  an  attendant,  when  he  greeted  me  with  the 
half- sad  accost,  in  which  lurked  the  suggestion 
of  a  grim  humour,  "  Well,  Sully,  you  see  I  am 
trying  to  keep  myself  alive."  However  variable 
our  relations  might  have  been,  the  announcement 
of  his  death  stirred  a  deep-lying  deposit  of  grate- 
ful memories.  Herbert  Spencer's  death  had  no 
such  profound  effect  on  my  feeling,  as  will  appear 
from  my  account  of  our  relations.  The  death 
of  my  delightful  companion  of  Hampstead  days, 
Canon  Ainger,  renewed  and  deepened  the  sense 
of  personal  bereavement  v/hich  I  experienced  when 
those  days  ended.  Then,  early  in  the  following 
year,  as  a  master-stroke,  death  robbed  me  of 
my  idol  among  friends,  Leslie  Stephen.  By  this 
time  I  felt  as  if  in  coming  abroad  I  had  been 
running  away  from  Death  and  was  being  pursued 
by  his  black  shadow.  The  idea  of  returning  to 
England,  now  reduced,  like  an  ancient  Roman 
road,  to  a  place  of  tombs,  v/as  insufferable  to  me, 
and  I  lingered  on  in  the  Land  of  Consolation,  trying 
to  keep  up  m^y  courage  by  much  walking. 

The  follov/ing  j^ears  brought  other  sore  bereave- 
ments. All  sides  of  my  life  were  struck  at  by 
these  blows.  When  a  friend  dies  our  thoughts 
are  wont  to  revert  to  the  beginning  of  our  friend- 
ship. Richard  Garnett  comes  back  to  me  as  I 
used  to  see  him  and  hear  him  at  the  enclosed 
central  desk  in  the  Reading  Room  of  the  British 
Museum.     His    voice    was,    I    think,    high-pitched 


248  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

and  thin,  and  his  speech  was  characterized  by  a 
certain  dehberation  and  precision  of  statement. 
On  being  asked  if  he  knew  any  good  references  to 
an  out-of-the-way  subject,  such  as  infant  prodigies, 
he  would  consider  a  moment,  and  then  reply,  "  I 
think  if  you  will  consult  such  and  such  a  book 
somewhere  near  a  particular  page  you  will  find 
something  germane  to  the  subject."  I  do  not 
remember  ever  finding  him  wrong  in  his  conjec- 
ture. My  high  opinion  of  his  abilities  was  raised 
still  higher  on  hearing  that  he  lunched  upon  a 
bun.  This  form  of  human  diet  was  a  horror  to 
my  weak  stomach ;  so  I  could  not  but  admire 
the  physical  courage  of  a  man  who  was  bold 
enough  to  attack  it.  But  the  bun  symbolized 
more  to  me :  as  a  form  of  dense  stodgy  food- 
material  it  spoke  of  the  busy  bibliophile  snatch- 
ing a  hurried  meal  so  as  to  get  back  as  soon  as 
possible  to  his  books. 

The  name  of  Walter  Savage  Armstrong  is  plea- 
santly linked  with  two  delightful  holidays  In  Ireland. 
He  wrote  much  poetry,  and  was  a  good  reciter 
of  verse.  He  knew  his  country  well,  not  only 
its  physical  aspects,  but  its  weird  and  fascinating 
history  and  legends.  A  walk  with  him  in  the 
Wicklow  mountains  stands  out  clear  among  the 
radiant  summer  days.  He  had  a  full  flow  of 
mirth,  which  was  a  further  qualification  for  a 
fellow-tramp.  To  these  valuable  qualities  he  added 
a  singular  warmth  of  kindness,  and  had  the  genuine 
brand  of  Irish  hospitality. 

Another  departure  which  darkened  the  sky  for 
many  a  day  was  the  death  of  our  good  neighbour 


THE  THINNING   OF    THE   RANKS  249 

and  friend,  Mrs.  Orrinsmith.  In  the  years  when 
the  children  ruled  the  home,  there  were  frequent 
patterings  of  young  feet  between  the  two  houses. 
A  sister  of  Faulkner,  of  the  Oxford  pre-Raphaelite 
brotherhood,  she  herself  was  a  lover  of  art, 
and  had  designed  for  William  Morris  ;  and  both 
her  home  and  her  person  reflected  a  feeling 
for  refined  decoration.  To  listen  to  her  talk 
of  the  days  when,  as  an  eager  girl,  she  was 
taken  to  the  house  of  Burne-Jones,  to  see 
Morris  and  Rossetti,  and  sometimes  even  Swin- 
burne and  Meredith,  was  better  than  many  costly 
entertainments.  I  urged  her  more  than  once  to 
put  down  these  precious  girlish  impressions,  but 
she  was  either  too  shy  to  join  in  the  new  inrush 
of  women-writers,  or  was  restrained  by  some  old- 
fashioned  prejudice  against  turning  the  limelight 
upon  things  which  have  a  certain  sacredness. 

Soon  after  this  there  came  the  tidings  of  the 
death  of  William  James,  who,  though  we  may 
have  drifted  apart  somewhat,  still  counted,  I  found, 
for  one  of  the  strong  supports  of  my  life. 

Another  friendship  closed  by  the  heavy  leaf-fall 
of  these  years  was  that  with  Lady  Victoria  Welby. 
In  the  spring  of  1892  Mrs.  W.  K.  Clifford 
asked  me  whether  I  should  be  willing  to  take 
part  in  a  symposium  of  savants  and  thinkers 
that  Lady  Welby  was  arranging  for  the  Easter 
holidays.  I  accepted  the  invitation,  and  found 
myself  at  Denton  Manor  among  old  friends,  like 
Shadworth  Hodgson  and  Romanes,  and  others 
only  heard  of  as  yet,  such  as  Oliver  Lodge  and 
Lloyd    Morgan.     With    Denton    Manor    itself   and 


250  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

its  charming  household  I  was  more  than  pleased. 
As  it  was  my  first  visit  to  a  "  country  house,"  I 
was  interested  in  noting  how  smoothly  things  run, 
if  only  one  brings  naturalness  of  manner  to  meet 
that  of  one's  hosts. 

In  the  forenoon  v/e  met  in  solemn  conclave, 
pencil  in  hand,  while  our  hostess  as  president 
directed  the  discussion.  I  had  known  nothing  of 
her  intellectual  aspirations,  but  soon  got  an 
inkling  of  the  drift  of  her  researches.  Her  whole 
soul  was  at  this  time  concentrated  upon  certain 
aspects  of  language  which  she  regarded  as  unduly 
neglected.  She  had  quick  and  penetrating 
intuitions,  and  was  deeply  impressed  with 
the  miany  subtle  v/ays  in  which  v/ords  react, 
for  evil  as  well  as  for  good,  upon  our  thinking. 
So  completely  possessed  was  she  with  this  idea 
that  she  employed  a  secretary  to  write  out  passages 
from  contemporary  scientific  and  other  writers 
which  seemed  to  her  to  illustrate  those  abuses  of 
language  which,  as  she  held,  make  for  bad  thinking. 
She  v/as,  I  remember,  particularly  hard  upon  the 
darkening  possibilities  of  metaphor,  though  I  do 
not  recall  that  she  quoted  the  highly  metaphori- 
cal William  James  among  her  culprits.  Her 
absorbing  study  acquired  in  time  something  of 
the  zeal  of  a,  religious  propaganda,  and  she  was 
especially  anxious  to  rouse  educators  to  a  sense 
of  its  importance. 

Her  hearers  at  these  gatherings  fell  into  various 
attitudes.  So  admirable  was  she  in  person  and 
manner,  so  arresting  was  the  freshness  and  the 
penetrative  insight  of  her  discourse,  that  one  could 


I.ADV    \Vi;i,BV. 


To  face  p.  ^W. 


LADY  WELBY  251 

not  but  be  respectful.  Yet  there  were  not  wanting 
some  who  told  her  with  an  almost  brutal  frankness 
that  she  was  on  a  wrong  track.  She  held  my  eye 
enthralled  when  some  one  would  strike  in  with 
an  appreciative  note,  and  the  fine  head  would 
reacli  forward  in  eager  anticipation  of  what  was 
coming — every  trace  of  deafness  seeming  for  a 
moment  to  disappear  under  a  preternatural  tension 
of  the  brain.  My  own  attitude  v,^as  a  rather  com- 
plex one.  I  was  interested  psj^chologically  in  these 
courageous  efforts  of  an  elderly  lady  to  strike 
out  her  own  pathway  of  theoretic  synthesis.  I 
could  not  but  recognize  the  skill  she  showed  in 
forcing  a  word  or  a  phrase  to  yield  its  buried  ore 
of  rich  meaning :  as  when  slie  once  read  me  an  ex- 
quisite little  sociological  and  ethical  study  on  tlic 
significance  of  the  expression  "  mother-wit."  Yet 
it  v/as  plain  that  both  her  diiTiculties  and  her 
efforts  to  surmount  them  arose  largely  from  the 
circumstance  that,  at  a  comparatively  late  date,  she 
was  taking  up  branches  of  learning  for  which  there 
had  been  no  adequate  preparation  in  the  early 
and  more  plastic  years.  I  tried  more  than  once 
to  explain  to  her  that  the  subject  of  meanings — 
or  "  signifies,"  as  she  at  one  time  called  it — could 
not  be  isolated  and  made  a  special  branch  of 
science.  And  when  she  told  me  that  she  had 
obtained  the  entree  for  her  message  in  Mind,  and 
later  in  our  principal  Sncyclopgedia,  I  was  more 
sorry  than  glad  on  her  account ;  lest  the  friends 
who  had  helped  her  to  secure  this  publicity 
might  have  rendered  to  her  memory  a  very 
doubtful  service. 


252  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

The  last  of  the  comrades  of  my  strenuous  days 
to  leave  me  was  Shadworth  Hodgson.  Little  as 
I  had  seen  of  him  for  many  years,  the  news  of 
his  death  carried  me  swiftly  back  to  the  time 
when  his  hearty  greeting  was  one  of  the  things 
that  lit  up  life's  road.  At  the  Savile,  and,  better 
still,  in  his  rooms  in  Conduit  Street,  I  held  with 
him  much  sweet  discourse.  The  generosity  he 
displayed,  alike  in  making  his  books  a  joy  to  the 
eye  and  in  presenting  copies  of  them  to  his  friends, 
made  one  feel  it  almost  a  duty  to  become  his 
pupil ;  and  if  I  did  not  succeed,  like  William 
James,  in  setting  him  among  my  masters,  I  became 
a  diligent  reader  of  his  books,  and  found  much 
that  was  interesting  in  his  points  of  view  and 
lines  of  argument.  But,  along  with  most  of  the 
friends,  Colonel  Osborn,  Dr.  Bridges,  and  others, 
who  in  the  seventies  and  eighties  frequented 
his  rooms  and  partook  of  his  dainty  little  dinners, 
I  was  more  interested  in  his  literary  criticisms 
than  in  his  philosophy.  His  room,  packed  with 
books,  up  to  a  point  barely  compatible  with  ample 
breathing  space,  contained  many  a  choice  volume. 
He  had  published  a  collection  of  critical  studies, 
naming  it,  I  think,  with  chai  acteristic  humour, 
"  Rejected  Essays,"  of  which  he  gave  me  a  copy. 
His  friends  were  delighted  on  hearing  of  his  being 
appointed  president  of  the  new  Aristotelian 
Society.  His  plan  of  life  seemed  to  be  based  on 
Aristotle's  ideal,  and  something  in  the  nature  of 
a  school  was,  we  thought,  all  that  he  needed.  For 
many  years  he  found  a  happy  self-realization  in 
guiding  his  team  of  younger  inquirers  ;   though  I 


SHADWORTH   HODGSON  253 

fear  he  may  have  felt  it  sorely  when  the  day 
came — as  it  will  come,  if  we  persist  in  outliving 
our  hour — for  new  men  to  arise  who,  restrained 
by  no  feeling  of  piety,  unsparingly  attacked  his 
philosophic  views.  Some  of  us  who  outlived 
him  speculated  as  to  what  the  man  in  the  street 
might  say  when  he  read  of  Hodgson's  death  : 
"  Shadworth  Hodgson  ?  Shadworth  Hodgson  ? 
Methinks  I  should  know  that  name.  But  what  on 
earth  has  he  done  ?  "  Happily,  perhaps,  notices 
of  his  death  were  few  enough  to  allow  the  man 
in  the  street  to  go  on  undisturbed  in  his  ignorance. 
For  those  who  care  to  measure  other  than  surface- 
values,  his  death  was  the  completion  of  a  rare  and 
noble  life.  The  tragedy  of  his  short  wedded  life, 
hidden  in  the  dedication  of  one  of  his  works  {meis 
mortuis),  was  splendidly  surmounted,  and  fol- 
lowed by  a  long  solitary  devotion  to  the  search 
for  truth  in  our  huge  noisy  metropolis — in  the 
very  midst  of  its  fashionable  world. 

During  the  last  years  of  work,  when  Death 
was  thus  levying  heavy  toll,  other  friends  became 
virtually  lost  to  us  without  his  intervention. 
Local  removals  in  this  huge  all-absorbing  London 
are  apt  to  cut  cruelly  into  the  places  of  fraternal 
gathering ;  and  I  regretted  these  losses  hardly 
less  than  those  which  the  unsparing  reaper  had 
heaped  upon  me.  There  was  no  place  for  a  peace- 
ful resignation  in  their  case.  One  was  teased 
with  the  thought  that,  though  practically  lost  to 
us,  they  were  still  living  ;  and  then  there  would 
come  the  melancholy  foreboding  that,  even  if 
chance  were  to  bring  us  together  again,  we  might 


254  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

find  ourselves  unable  to  rejoin  hands  long 
estranged.  I  knew  only  too  well  that  I  should 
henceforth  find  no  new  friends  to  fill  the  place 
of  the  old  ones.  Yet  the  readiness  to  attach  my- 
self had  not  been  quite  exhausted  ;  and  during 
tliese  last  years  I  have,  both  in  England  and  in 
Italy,  been  fortunate  enough  to  add  to  the 
number  of  those  whom  I  can  claim  as  friends  on 
the  grounds  of  affectionate  intimacy  and  the  com- 
parative permanence  of  the  attachment. 

The  four  odd  years  which,  upon  my  retirement 
from  official  v/ork,  I  passed  in  Italy  helped  to 
alleviate  achings  of  heart  and  to  restore  vigour. 
The  climate  enforced  at  first  a  measure  of  dolce 
far  niente.  Gradually,  however,  the  inactivity 
grev/  irksome,  and  I  planned  outlines  of  travel. 
Among  the  places  where  I  lingered,  both  on  the 
"  continent  "  and  in  Sicily,  were  the  high-pitched 
hill-cities  which,  in  that  fair  country,  are  ever 
beckoning  one  to  come  up  higher.  In  Sicily  I 
worked  hard  at  the  Greek  temples-^both  those 
still  erect  and  those  reduced  to  a  mass  of  splendid 
ruins.  In  a  town  visited  on  my  way  to  the  ruins 
of  Selinunte,  I  rejoiced  to  come  upon  a  memorial 
to  my  old  acquaintance  Samuel  Butler,  in  the 
name  of  a  street  ("  Via  Samuel  Butler  ").  The 
curious  composite  architecture  of  Saracen  and 
Norman  in  Sicily  greatly  pleased  me.^ 

I  fraternized  with  the  people  among  whom 
I  tarried ;  and,  possibly  because  I  was  a  lonely 
sexagenarian,    they    bestowed    on    me   much   kind 

I  An  account  of  it  is  attempted  in  my  "  Italian  Travel 
Sketches." 


SICILY  255 

attention.  I  would  sometimes,  as  at  Orvieto, 
avoid  the  Englishman's  hotel  and  take  a  room  in 
a  private  house,  eating  at  a  restaurant ;  which 
was  selected  by  noting  the  places  frequented  by 
officers.  I  found  them  very  civil ;  and  sometimes 
one  of  them  v/ould  take  me  under  his  special 
guardianship,  shouting  at  the  waiter  if  he  seemed 
too  negligent  of  the  ''''  forestiere.''''  Apropos  of 
these  modest  alberghi  and  y^istoranii,  I  remember 
once  staying  in  a  tiny  inn  near  the  ruins  of 
Syracuse.  Besides  myself  there  was  only  a  pair 
of  Austrians,  a  brother  and  a  sister,  both  painters. 
The  meals  were  surprisingly  good,  and  an  extra 
flavour  was  given  to  the  viands  by  our  nimble 
host,  who,  after  serving  us  with  a  dish,  would 
pop  his  head  through  a  small  opening  in  the  wall, 
presumably  intended  for  conveying  dishes  from 
the  kitchen  to  the  meal-room,  and  ask,  "  Va  bene?  " 
("Is  it  all  right  ?  "),  to  which  would  be  responded 
an  emphatic  "  Benissirao  /  "  ("  First  class  !  ") 

One  pleasant  incident  in  these  wanderings  was  my 
meeting  in  a  Sicilian  town  with  a  young  professor 
of  English.  At  the  evening  meal  I  caught  sight 
of  his  inquiring  glance,  and  before  the  repast 
was  over  he  came  across  and  asked  me  if  I  were 
not  English.  We  soon  "  chummed,"  and  he  be- 
came an  excellent  cicerone  and  companion  during 
my  stay.  Not  quite  so  agreeable  was  my  en- 
counter, on  a  road  not  far  from  Monreale  (outside 
Palermo),  with  a  driver  of  one  of  the  pretty  Sicilian 
carts  on  which  are  painted  heroic  deeds  of  the  age 
of  Saracen  and  crusader.  He  stopped  and  urged 
me  to  "  have  a  lift  "  and  rest  awhile.     The  "  repose" 


256  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

in  the  springless  vehicle  turned  out  to  be  a  highly 
disagreeable  and  fatiguing  series  of  shakings  and 
bumpings.  So,  hard  as  it  was,  I  had  to  beg  him 
to  put  me  down  on  terra  jirma.  The  experiejice 
explained,  I  thought,  in  connection  with  the  rough, 
uneven  roads,  hov,^  it  is  the  peasants  adopt  so  slow 
a  pace  when  driving  in  their  cars.  The  old  Sicilian 
cart  is,  in  one  respect,  the  exact  opposite  of  the 
new  motor-car  :  its  delectabilities  are  enjoyed  by 
the  outsider  only,  while  its  horrors  are  allotted  to 
the  occupant  of  the  vehicle. 


PART    II 
PEN-PORTRAITS    OF    FRIENDS 


18 


CHAPTER    XIV 

GEORGE   ELIOT   IN  THE   SEVENTIES 

I  FIRST  caught  sight  of  the  Leweses  in  the  concert 
chamber,  St.  James's  Hall,  from  the  balcony  of 
v/hich  one  could  watch  Lewes  take  off  his  heavy 
fur-lined  cloak  and  help  to  make  George  Eliot 
comfortable,  and  could  note  the  passages  in  the 
music  which  appeared  to  give  them  special  en- 
jo^^ment.  I  was  then  but  a  poor  outsider,  able 
to  offer  incense  to  my  deities  only  by  stealth. 
Others,  like  Sir  Frederick  Leighton,  distinguished 
also  in  appearance  and  reputation,  were  at  this 
time  subjected  to  a  harmless  gaze  from  us  unknown 
worshippers  in  the  Hall.  It  was  towards  the  end 
of  1874  that  I  first  called  at  the  Priory  to  get  some 
help  from  Lewes  in  my  reading.  On  being  shown 
into  the  librarj^  I  was  received  by  a  man  with 
a  queer  un-English  type  of  face,  lanky  black  hair, 
a  thick  moustache,  and  a  rather  ungainly  stoop. 
He  welcomed  me  cordially,  and  at  the  end  of  our 
interview  invited  me  to  call  on  a  Sunday  afternoon, 
emphasizing  the  value  of  his  invitation  by  saying, 
"  Don't  tell  G,,   if  you  happen  to  know  him." 

I  soon  plucked  up  courage  to  pay  my  respects 
to    the    great    novelist.     In    the    Priory    she    was 


260  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

hidden  away  from  public  gaze  as  in  a  nunnery. 
In  response  to  the  bell  the  entrance  gate  opened, 
yet  so  slowly  and  suspiciously  as  to  give  me  for 
a  moment  a  throb  of  trepidation.  Whilst  passing 
from  the  gate  to  the  front  door  I  had  an  awful 
glimpse  through  a  bay  window  of  a  lady  in  a 
lace  cap,  who  fortunately  was  not  facing  me. 
In  the  long  draAving-room,  to  which  I  was 
conducted  by  a  quiet  middle-aged  woman,  were 
a  number  of  persons — mostly  men,  I  think — sitting 
round  the  fire,  in  a  semi-oval  arrangement.  I 
was  taken  up  by  Lewes  to  the  farther  end  of  the 
oval  and  presented  to  George  Eliot,  the  lady  I 
had  glimpsed  through  the  window.  She  looked 
elderly  and  a  little  worn  as  she  sat  on  a  low  chair. 
Her  strong  face,  with  its  prominent  cheek-bones 
and  its  unusual  length  from  mouth  to  chin,  is 
known  to  everybody.  What  is  less  well  known  is 
the  marvellous  transformation  of  the  heavy  features 
when  expression  gave  the  alchemist's  touch.  As 
she  extended  a  long,  thin  hand  to  me  and  smiled, 
the  grey  eyes  seemed  to  light  up,  while  the  ripples 
of  the  smile  broke  up  the  heavy  facial  masses 
with  sweet  and  gracious  lines.  It  was,  I  think, 
this  metamorphosis  of  a  face,  looking  in  repose 
decidedly  heavy,  which  led  one  well  qualified  to 
judge  of  faces  to  speak  of  it  as  the  plainest  and 
the  most  fascinating  he  had  ever  seen.  The  capti- 
vating effect  of  the  smile  was  supported  by  the 
charm  of  the  low-pitched  voice,  which  had  a  rich 
timbre  and  was  finely  modulated. 

In    my    time    the    Sunday    afternoon    gatherings 
lasted  from  about  3.30  to  6.     The  talk  would  some- 


To  face  p.  -260. 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  261 

times  be  general,  but  when  the  number  of  guests 
was  large  it  tended  to  split  up.  George  Eliot 
had  her  own  quiet  chats  with  one  or  two  of  the 
visitors  at  a  time.  Lewes  would  now  and  then 
bring  up  a  guest,  and  generally  would  keep  his 
eye  on  her  so  far  as  to  see  that  she  was  not  wearied. 
The  other  end  of  the  elliptical  curve  was  his  special 
domain.  Here  he  could  entertain  the  men  at  the 
tea-table  after  he  and  his  son  Charles  had  taken 
cups  to  the  ladies.  I  saw  nothing  of  "  the  mercurial 
little  showman  "  of  whom  George  Meredith  writes,^ 
indulging,  I  suspect,  his  most  merciless  vein  of 
caricature.  Lewes  was  much  too  occupied  with 
his  half  of  the  company,  from  which  he  got  a  good 
deal  of  entertainment,  to  make  a  proper  show- 
man. He  and  I  used  to  talk  "  shop,"  exchanging 
our  views,  often  unflattering  enough,  of  the  philo- 
sophers of  the  hour  and  their  productions.  He 
was  an  excellent  story-teller,  and  would  throw 
himself  into  what  I  guessed  was  an  oft-repeated 
jest  with  wonderful  elan,  accompanying  his  recitals 
with  a  good  deal  of  gesticulation  and  mimetic 
action.  The  son  of  a  comedian,  and  himself  a 
connoisseur  of  the  stage,  it  might  seem  to  any  one 
listening  to  his  stories  that  he  was  more  than 
half  acting  the  incident  narrated. 

One  of  the  stories  I  can  still  recall  was 
told  on  an  afternoon  when  George  Eliot  did  not 
appear.  The  conductor  of  a  bus  is  collecting  his 
fares,  and  on  demanding  twopence  from  a  foreign- 
looking  gentleman  is  offered  a  penny.  He  repeats 
his  demand  again  and  again,  growing  louder  and 
I  "  Letters  of  George  Meredith,"  ii.  pp.  539-40, 


262  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

holding  up  two  fingers  by  way  of  a  clearer  demon- 
stration of  the  amount  claimed.  All  his  efforts 
having  failed,  the  disgusted  official  turns  to  the 
rest  of  the  company  on  the  bus  and  asks  :  "  Is 
there  any  gentleman  here  who  knows  the  French 

for   '  b y   foreigner  '  ?  "     When  writing  to  me 

Lewes  would  manage  to  quote  something  funny 
that  he  had  just  come  across,  such  as  the  story 
sent  him  by  Lytton  from  India  of  a  native  student 
who,  being  asked  in  his  competitive  examination 
to  describe  a  horse,  replied  :  "  The  horse  is  a  noble 
animal,  but  if  he  is  irritated  he  will  not  do  so." 
There  were  many  distinguished  guests  to  be 
seen  at  the  Priory  :  among  others,  Leslie 
Stephen,  the  Frederic  Harrisons,  the  Du  Mauriers, 
and  W.  K.  Clifford.  Some  foreigners  of  note 
would  now  and  again  come  in,  including, 
I  believe,  Ernst  Haeckel  of  Jena.  Sometimes  a 
name  was  announced  which  sent  a  thrill  through 
me.  The  appearance  of  no  visitor  surprised  me 
quite  so  much  as  that  of  Tennj^son  and  his  two 
sons  :  it  was,  I  thought,  a  striking  proof  of  the 
completeness  of  Society's  acceptance  of  an  irregu- 
lar connubial  relation.  Lewes  soon  monopo- 
lized the  poet.  Their  talk  got  upon  the  topic 
of  "  thick-skinned  people  "  ;  and  Tennyson, 
no  doubt  led  on  by  his  roguish  host,  fiercely 
upheld  the  popular  doctrine  that  thinness  and 
thickness  of  the  epidermis  are  indicative  of  fine- 
ness and  dullness  of  sensibility.  Lewes  contended 
that  this  was  bad  science,  and  maliciously  drew 
me  into  the  squabble,  knowing  that  I  was  bound 
to  support  his  view.     Then,  growing  really  angry, 


'I!  il'l'^lu  fkljllj'lvll     1 1 


GEORGE    HENRY   LEWES. 


To  fcice  1)  262. 


TENNYSON  263 

the  poet  drew  up  his  wristband  and  pinching  a 
bit  of  the  skin,  exclaimed  :  "  Look  here,  Lewes." 
It  was  a  strange  experience  for  me ;  for  Tennyson 
had  been  the  poet  of  my  adolescence  and  early 
manhood,  and  this  was  our  first  and  last  meeting. 

Another  caller  at  the  Priory  who  left  a  deep  im- 
pression upon  my  mind  Was  the  great  surgeon,  Sir 
James  Paget.  I  can  still  recall  the  tall,  erect 
figure  and  the  magnificent  black  eyes,  which 
searched  you  through  and  through,  yet  with  no 
unkindly  intent. 

As  I  have  hinted,  some  of  the  company  were 
young,  promises  rather  than  realizations  of  achieve- 
ment. Among  these,  one  was  so  young  that  he 
besought  me  not  to  reveal  his  age.  But  he  had 
perfect  aplomb,  and  would  join  in  a  general  con- 
versation with  what  to  me  was  an  enviable 
assurance.  He  was  fresh  from  a  German  Univer- 
sity, and,  fired  perhaps  with  something  of  the 
Schwdrmerei  of  the  Fatherland,  would  air  his  views 
to  us  on  the  desirability  of  a  proper  infusion  of 
the  emotional  into  the  human  composition.  His 
language  v/as  speckled  with  quaint  Teutonisms, 
as  well  as  with  such  metaphysical  terms  as  "  objec- 
tive "  and  "  a  priori."  The  appearance  of  this 
unruffled  exponent  of  a  rather  naive  philosophy 
in  a  London  drawing-room  was  welcomed  by  the 
company  as  a  gay  interlude  in  the  more  serious 
proceedings,  and  heads  might  be  seen  slightly 
turning  one  to  another  with  a  discreet  smile. 

If  Lewes  amused  his  company  by  his  jocosities, 
George  Eliot  enfolded  her  auditors  in  an  atmo- 
STDhere   of    discriminative   sympathy.     She   had   a 


264  MY   LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

clairvoyant  insight  into  mind  and  character,  which 
enabled  her  to  get  at  once  into  spiritual  touch 
tvith  a  stranger,  fitting  her  talk  to  his  special 
tastes  and  needs,  and  drawing  out  what  was  best 
in  him.  Her  conversation  ranged  over  a  large 
area  of  subject,  touching  not  only  English,  but 
French,  German,  and  Italian  literature,  and  passing 
easily  from  homely  everyday  topics  up  to  art 
and  philosophy.  She  had  read  Schopenhauer,  and 
spoke  warmly,  almost  indignantly,  of  his  con- 
ception of  human  life.  She  could  not  understand, 
she  said,  how  any  one  who  had  the  ability  and  the 
opportunity  to  better  the  lot  of  others  could  sink 
into  pessimism.  She  herself,  she  added,  held  a 
view  midway  between  those  of  the  optimist  and 
the  pessimist,  to  which  she  gave  the  name  of 
Meliorism  ;  and  when  I  was  about  to  bring  out 
my  book  on  Pessimism  she  allowed  me  to  quote 
her  words,  if  I  "  found  it  useful  for  the  doctrine 
of  Meliorism  to  cite  one  unfashionable  confessor  of 
it,  in  the  face  of  the  fashionable  extremes."  Among 
writers  of  fiction  she  spoke  highly  of  Turgeniev, 
urging  me  to  read  him. 

Now  and  again  I  heard  from  the  Leweses  when 
they  were  out  of  town.  In  a  letter  written  from 
Rickmansworth,  Lewes  speaks  of  the  "  undis- 
turbed country  life  where  les  jours  se  suivent  et  se 
ressemhlent,  and  we  can  work  like  steam-engines." 

Not  long  after  George  Lewes's  death,  Charles 
told  me  that  his  mother  (as  he  always  called  her) 
would  like  to  see  me,  to  talk  over  the  plan  of  my 
assisting  her  in  the  revision  of  Lewes's  posthumous 
volume  of  the  "  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,"  as 


IMAGERY  265 

well  as  an  article  on  Lewes's  life  and  work  which 
I  was  about  to  write  for  a  review.  It  was  a  dark 
afternoon  when  I  called,  and  the  lamp  was  not 
yet  lit.  I  found  a  stranger  talking  with  George 
Eliot.  Shortly  afterwards  he  left,  and  I  had  my 
turn.  I  could  see  that  she  was  very  solicitous 
about  my  proposed  article  on  Lewes,  and  it  was 
a  relief  when,  after  I  had  sent  her  a  proof  of  it, 
she  wrote  to  assure  me  that  she  had  "  read  the 
article  with  very  grateful  feelings." 

About  this  time  Francis  Galton  was  making 
experimental  inquiries  into  variations  of  visual- 
izing power  among  individuals.  He  told  me  he 
particularly  wanted  to  get  George  Eliot's  "  co- 
efficient." I  brought  up  the  subject  during  my 
visit,  and  she  at  once  said  she  could  carry 
about  so  distinct  a  picture  of  the  faces  of  her 
friends,  that  not  only  photographs,  but  nearly  all 
portraits,  disappointed  her  by  their  incompleteness. 

This  was  the  last  time  I  saw  George  Eliot.  The 
visit  was  made  unforgettable,  too,  by  a  strange 
occurrence,  unique  in  my  experience.  While  the 
stranger  I  found  there  was  in  the  room,  I  had  not 
the  slightest  suspicion  that  he  was  familiar  to 
me.  But  on  reaching  the  gate  when  leaving,  a 
singularly  vivid  image  of  Watts 's  portrait  of  Burne- 
Jones  flashed  upon  my  mind's  eye,  and  I  instantly 
recognized  that  the  stranger  I  had  met  at  the 
Priory  was  the  original  of  this  portrait.  In 
general,  while  good  at  recognizing  persons  when 
present,  I  am  particularly  bad  at  recalling  their 
features  when  absent.  What  curious  psychical 
factor,    I     asked     myself,    had     delayed     the    re- 


266  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

cognition  in  this  case  and  made  it  dependent 
upon  a  memory-image  ?  The  experience  seems  to 
suggest  that  the  recent  psychological  view  of 
recognition  as  a  wholly  imageless  process  may 
have  to  be  revised. 

From  my  conversations  with  her  I  did  not"  get 
the  impression  that  George  Eliot  was  closely  ac- 
quainted with  science.  No  doubt  Lewes  talked  to 
her  about  it  and  interested  her  in  many  of  its  aspects. 
But  I  suspect  that  Leslie  Stephen,  in  his  biography 
of  her,  rather  overrates  the  influence  of  Lewes 
upon  her  intellectual  development.  One  must 
remember  that  she  had  read  philosophical  books, 
and  shown  a  strong  bent  towards  abstract  thought, 
before  she  came  under  that  influence.  And  had 
there  been  no  Lewes,  her  reflective  disposition  v/ould 
pretty  certainly,  as  she  grew  older,  have  encroached 
upon  the  dominion  of  her  vivid  imagination.  How- 
ever this  may  have  been,  in  judging  of  the  influence 
of  her  association  with  Lewes  upon  hei:  genius,  we 
should  remember  that  it  was  he  who  discovered  her 
great  imaginative  gift  and  first  fostered  it  by  warm 
encouragement. 


CHAPTER    XV 

JAMES    COTTER    MORISON 

Cotter  Morison  was  one  of  the  happy  group  of 
mortals  whose  lot  was  extolled  by  Aristotle — the 
men  who  have  a  strong  bent  towards  the  intel- 
lectual life  and  at  the  same  time  sufficient  inde- 
pendence and  leisure  for  its  full  fruition.  His 
father,  who  was  believed  by  his  large  clientele  to 
have  discovered  a  remedy  for  some  of  the  ills 
v/hich  ilesh  is  heir  to,  left  hirn  a  competence  ;  and 
a  love  of  ideas  and  of  their  expression  in  litera- 
ture prompted  him  to  turn  his  good  fortune  to 
noble  uses. 

The  early  years  of  Morison's  life  did  not  conform 
to  the  customary  pattern.  He  lost  his  father  at 
the  age  of  eight.  After  a  short  trial  at  Highgate 
School,  he  v/as  removed  by  his  mother,  a  bright 
and  attractive  lady,  so  tradition  says,  who  held 
a  view  of  education  excellently  suited  to  the  boy 
of  genius  when  you  can  be  sure  of  him,  namely, 
that  education  was  altogether  unnecessary,  seeing 
that  it  never  made  stupid  people  clever,  while 
those  who  were  clever  would  pick  up  learning 
for  themselves.  Travelling  is  a  good  way  of 
putting  the   "  picking  up  "   theory  into  practice, 

267 


268  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

and  Mrs.  Morison  frequently  took  her  boy  on 
foreign  tours.  But— alas  for  the  pedagogic  systems 
of  bright  young  mothers  ! — Cotter  appears  to  have 
grown  tired  of  perpetual  holiday,  and  in  the  year 
1850  he  took  his  education  into  his  own  hands, 
and  entered  at  Lincoln  College,  Oxford. 

At  the  University  he  is  said  to  have  won  popu- 
larity by  his  social  qualities,  and  some  reputation 
as  an  "  oar  "  and  a  fencer.  Here,  too,  he  formed 
some  of  his  lasting  friendships,  among  others 
with  the  Rector  of  his  College,  Mark  Pattison,  and 
with  John  Morley.  To  Morley  he  remained  warmly 
attached,  and  he  would  speak  with  enthusiasm 
of  his  rapid  rise  to  literary  fame.  He  told  me, 
with  a  look  of  pride,  of  his  having  had  much  to  do 
with  Morley's  appointment  to  the  editorship  of 
the  Fortnightly  Review. 

He  began  literary  work  by  joining  the  staff  of 
the  Saturday  Bevieiv.  I  have  often  wondered 
how  so  gentle  a  person  could  have  managed  to 
attain  to  that  sharpness  of  stroke  which  was  in 
those  days  considered  requisite  for  a  Saturday 
Reviewer.  But  he  was  soon  to  try  his  hand  at 
a  very  different  kind  of  writing.  The  "  Life  of 
St.  Bernard  "  would  have  been  a  fine  example 
of  the  sympathetic  interpretation  of  a  saint  even 
had  it  been  written  by  a  fellow-Catholic  ;  as  it 
is,  it  may  claim  to  be  regarded  as  a  literary 
wonder,  a  highly  successful  attempt  to  render 
intelligible  and  appreciable  a  manner  of  man, 
not  only  remote  from  the  pattern  of  to-day,  but 
alien,  one  might  have  supposed,  to  the  writer's 
special    tastes    and    intellectual    habits.     The    ex- 


riiotoi 


[The  London  Stereoscopic  Co. 


.JAMKS    COTTER    MORISON 


To  face  p.  268. 


"LIFE   OF  ST.   BERNARD"  269 

planation  is  probably  to  be  found  in  the  many- 
sidedness  of  Morison's  mind  and  the  wide  range 
of  his  sympathetic  insight,  as  also  in  the  strong 
aroma  of  medisevalism  whieh  characterized  Oxford 
when  Morison  went  up.  In  later  life  he  told  one 
of  his  intimate  friends  that  at  one  time  the  sight 
of  John  Henry  Newman  sent  such  a  thrill  through 
him  that  he  could  have  fallen  at  his  feet  and  kissed 
his  hand.  It  was  the  same  many-sidedness  and 
large  emotional  responsiveness  which  predisposed 
him  to  take  up  Auguste  Comte's  idea  of  a 
religious  cult  in  which  Humanity  was  to  take  the 
place  of  Deity,  and  immortality  to  become  a 
survival  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  posterity. 

Two  incidents  connected  with  the  writing  of 
the  "  Life  of  St.  Bernard  "  are  worth  noting. 
Whilst  steeping  his  imagination  in  the  subject,  he 
obtained  the  privilege  of  passing  some  weeks  in  a 
Cistercian  monastery,  submitting  himself  to  the 
sternest  forms  of  monastic  discipline.^  This 
action  suggests,  along  with  the  fascination  of 
his  subject,  a  turn  for  scientific  experiment.  The 
other  incident  illustrates  how,  at  this  time,  he 
fell  under  the  spell  of  a  different  type  of  mystical 
writer,  Thomas  Carlyle.  Morison  took  his  MS. 
to  his  friend  George  Meredith,  who,  having  found 
the  style  too  Carlylese,  proceeded  to  impress  the 
fact  upon  the  writer  by  reading  out  portions  and 
exaggerating  the  traces  of  Carlyle's  influence. 
Morison  bore  the  ordeal  for  a  time,  then  got  up, 
and  in  tones  of  despair  announced  his  resolve  not 

^  Related  by  Frederic  Harrison  in  the  obituary  notice  of 
Morison  ("In  Meraoriam  "). 


270  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

to  publish  his  work ;  whereupon  Meredith  re- 
assured him  by  telhng  him  that  the  matter  was 
good,  and  tliat  all  that  was  needed  was  an  im- 
provement in  the  manner.  Morison  took  the 
advice  with  characteristic  docility,  and  by  giving 
a  year  or  two  to  the  rewriting  of  the  work,  pro- 
duced the  excellent  j^iece  of  literature  which  we  now 
possess.  It  was  probably  about  this  time,  just 
three  years  before  Mrs.  Carlyle's  death,  that  he 
used  to  visit  Chelsea,  and  learned  when  smoking 
with  the  sage  to  send  the  smoke  up  the  chimney, 
in  deference  to  Mrs.  Carlyle's  wish. 

After  his  marriage  Morison  appears  to  have 
lived  in  Paris.  Later,  in  the  Quartier  Latin  a 
fiat  was  taken  which  became  a  gathering-point 
for  a  select  number  of  men  of  letters  and  others, 
already  distinguished  or  destined  to  become  so. 
Among  these  was  a  group  of  Comtists  or  Posi- 
tivists  (followers  of  xAuguste  Comte),  which  in- 
cluded Pierre  Lafitte,  Comte's  successor  as  head 
of  the  community,  who  dined  with  the  Morisons 
regularly  once  a  week.  Distinguished  Americans, 
like  Emerson  and  Lowell,  when  they  came  to  Paris, 
were  also  among  the  visitors. 

In  1878  his  wife  died,  and  he  took  his  young 
family  to  London  and  settled  in  Montague  Place. 
This  new  home  became  another  centre  for  literary 
workers.  The  proximity  of  the  British  Museum 
secured  a  good  supply  of  visitors ;  for  Morison 
kept  an  open  luncheon-table.  It  was  about  this 
time  that  I  got  to  know  him,  and  was  cordially 
welcomed  at  the  lunch-hour  when  I  visited  the 
Reading  Room  of  the  Museum.     I  was  drawn  to 


CONVERSATION  2T1 

him  by  his  geniaHty,  in  which  there  was  a  soupQon 
of  French  gaiety,  by  his  kindly  interest  in  the 
work  of  others,  and  by  the  stimulation  and  charm 
of  his  talk.  The  bright,  alert  look,  the  winning 
smile,  a  mode  of  questioning  you  which  had 
nothing  of  intrusiveness,  but  flattered  by  its  wish 
to  be  in  close  touch  with  you — these  things 
emerge  for  me  to-day  out  of  the  dark  spaces  of 
memory.  His  friendly  accost,  which  seemed 
almost  an  expression  of  gratitude  for  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  a  friend,  was  in  itself  enough  to  win  you. 
His  mobile  and  versatile  spirit  seemed  to  love 
before  all  things  to  keep  in  touch  with  young 
and  growing  minds.  He  had  an  eye  for  genuine 
talent,  and  his  house  in  Montague  Place  had  as 
a  frequent  visitor  M.  Jusserand,  then,  if  I  remem- 
ber aright,  attached  to  the  French  Embassy. 

I  have  often  regretted  that  R.  L.  Stevenson  was 
not  able  to  include  Morison  among  the  types  of 
talkers  which  he  distinguishes  in  a  well-known 
essay.  His  talk  had  a  manner  and  a  quality  all 
its  own.  It  was  earnest  and  researchful,  yet 
lightened  by  a  certain  playfulness  of  mind — a  love 
of  the  fencing  game  with  words  as  well  as  with 
swords.  It  was  never  monopolizing,  but  seemed 
rather  to  be  inviting  his  interlocutor  to  give  of 
his  best.  In  this  respect  it  reminded  me  of  the 
quiet  obstetric  art  of  George  Eliot — with  the  differ- 
ence that  the  woman  seemed  to  desire  to  know 
your  ideas  in  order  to  know  you ;  whereas  Morison, 
though  he  was  friendly  and  sympathetic,  always 
made  you  feel  that  he  was  interested  in  your 
ideas  for  their  own  sake.     He  had  something  of 


272  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

the  eagerness  of  mind  of  the  old  Greeks,  some- 
thing, too,  of  their  dialectical  agility  and  of  their 
delight  in  discussion. 

WTiile  he  enjoyed  drawing  out  the  ideas  of 
younger  men,  Morison  was  quite  ready  to  meet 
his  equal  in  the  art  of  conversation.  I  can  recall 
memorable  talks  in  the  hospitable  house  of  our 
friend  Edward  Clodd,  at  Aldeburgh,  in  which 
he  encountered,  among  others.  Grant  Allen,  who 
also  was  a  prolific  talker  and  had  a  mind  stored 
with  various  and  curious  lore.  Morison  was  one 
of  the  few  who  could  venture  to  strike  in  now 
and  again  when,  at  Montague  Place,  his  friend 
George  Meredith  would  hold  his  other  hearers 
spellbound.  His  flow  of  talk  was  supported  by 
an  excellent  memory,  and  he  was  fond  of  relating 
to  his  family  how  he  and  Robert  Browning  had 
once  engaged  in  the  pastime  of  quoting  poetry 
against  each  other. 

In  1880  he  called  upon  us  at  our  Hampstead 
cottage,  and,  taking  a  fancy  to  the  old-world 
toy  of  a  house,  took  it  off  our  hands  for  the  two 
months  of  August  and  September.  I  saw  him 
there  in  August,  and  found  that  he  quite  enjoyed 
the  compression  of  his  family  into  the  small  rooms  ; 
which,  after  the  capacious  apartments  of  Montague 
Place,  must,  one  imagines,  have  recalled  to  him 
his  tenure  of  a  monastic  cell.  His  visit  was  under- 
taken with  the  object  of  trying  the  far-famed 
Hampstead  air,  and  of  looking  round  for  a  possible 
home.  I  rather  think  he  had  told  me  shortly 
before  that  the  organ-grinders,  John  Leach's 
tormentors    and   one   of   my    own   pet   aversions. 


HOSPITALITY  273 

were  beginning  to  trouble  the  dignified  repose  of 
Montague  Place.  In  the  end,  one  of  the  houses 
in  the  new  Fitzjohn's  Avenue  was  decided  upon. 
It  was  some  way  up  the  road  on  the  right-hand 
side.^  On  the  gate  was  printed  in  biggish  letters, 
"  Clairvaux,"  the  name  of  the  abbey  of  which 
St.  Bernard  had  been  the  head.  The  name  looked 
a  little  odd  on  one  of  the  palatial  fronts  of  the 
Avenue,  and  it  must,  one  supposes,  have  puzzled 
even  some  of  the  Illuminati  of  Hampstead.  I 
was  glad  to  have  him  so  near  me,  and  it  was  a 
new  pleasure  to  run  across  and  have  a  chat  with 
him,  or  to  encounter  his  kindly  smile  at  the 
Baker  Street  station  on  our  way  home. 

The  home  in  Hampstead  carried  on  the  hospit- 
able usages  of  Montague  Place.  While  near  the 
Heath  and  its  large  spaces  of  quietude,  it  was 
also  sufficiently  near  the  clubs  and  the  houses 
which  Morison  loved  to  visit.  His  dinners  were 
among  the  most  delightful  of  my  social  enter- 
tainments. Conversation  never  flagged,  and  the 
choice  and  piquant  dishes  seemed  to  add  to  its 
flavour. 

His  vitality  and  youthful  spirits  led  him  to 
associate  much  with  men  who  were  younger  than 
himself.  He  would  enjoy  taking  his  son  to 
the  well-known  Saturday  luncheon-party  at  the 
Savile  Club.  I  well  remember  an  evening  at  the 
Savile,  when  another  Hampsteadian  and  myself 
had  as  our  guest  our  friend  Colonel  Osborn.  After 
dinner,  in  the  smoking-room,  Morison  came  in, 
and  we  invited  him  to  join  our  trio.     Conversation 

I  At  that  time  No,  19  ;   now,  I  think,  No.  30. 
19 


274  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

somehow  turned  upon  certain  events  in  Byzantine 
history,  if  I  remember  aright.  Morison  was  talk- 
ing away  in  his  dehghtfully  easy  fashion,  when 
the  Colonel  gently  interrupted,  correcting  a  slip 
in  a  date.  Morison  not  only  took  the  correction 
in  good  part,  but  from  that  moment  specially 
addressed  himself  to  Osborn,  seeking  to  draw  out 
more  of  his  historical  knowledge,  which  was  both 
extensive  and  minute.  At  the  close  of  the  even- 
ing he  asked  us  the  name  of  our  friend,  and 
spoke  with  a  glow  of  admiration  of  his  good 
qualities.  It  was  a  charming  example  of  Morison's 
freedom  from  the  weaker  kind  of  amour  propre. 

So  perfectly  sociable  a  man  could  hardly  fail 
to  be  a  delightful  companion  to  his  children.  I 
remember  his  once  taking  me  down  to  the  base- 
ment of  "  Clairvaux  "  to  see  a  bout  of  fencing 
between  himself  and  his  son.  The  nervous  tension 
and  the  swift  succession  of  vigorous  movements 
excited  him,  and  he  threw  himself  into  the  intoxi- 
cating exercise  with  all  the  gusto  of  a  youngster. 
Nothing,  I  think,  gave  him  greater  pleasure  than 
to  hear  one  say  something  nice  about  one  of  his 
children.  He  seemed  to  take  it  just  as  if  it  had 
been  tendered  to  himself. 

Although  he  knew  Besant,  Du  Maurier,  and 
other  neighbours,  Morison  did  not,  I  believe, 
figure  in  what  was  known  as  Hampstead  Society, 
which,  it  may  be  observed,  was  then  beginning 
to  lose  its  old  local  distinctiveness.  He  lectured 
occasionally,  but  for  the  most  part  in  town.  I 
got  him  to  give  us  a  lecture  in  the  Subscription 
Library  of  Stanfield  House  on  "  The  Conservative 


"THE   SERVICE   OF  MAN"  275 

and  Progressive  Tendencies  in  Society  and  Human 
Nature."  But  alas !  his  name  was  not  widely 
known,  the  title  of  the  lecture  was  perhaps  a  little 
appalling,  and,  worse  than  all,  the  vv^eather  was 
atrocious,  so  that  the  audience  was  reduced  to  a 
pitiable  number.  I  remember  with  what  a  sweet 
grace  he  turned  aside  our  expressions  of  regret 
tinged  with  disgust. 

His  literary  output  was  a  small  one.  His  pro- 
jected opus  magnum,  a  study  of  a  certain  period 
of  French  history,  was  never  completed.  I  re- 
member paying  him  a  morning  call  and  finding 
him  sitting  in  his  study  before  a  pile  of  neatly 
written  MS.,  smoking  a  cigar.  I  had  not  seen 
a  cigar  in  the  mouth  of  a  scholar  at  work  since 
I  was  a  student  at  Gottingen,  some  fifteen  years 
before  this.  The  smoker  on  that  occasion  was 
a  student  of  Oriental  languages  and  a  Parisian  ; 
and  it  occurred  to  me,  that  morning  at  "  Clair- 
vaux,"  that  the  habit  might  have  been  acquired 
by  Morison  also  in  Paris. 

Some  years  before  death  came,  Morison  knew 
that  he  was  held  in  the  grip  of  an  incurable  disease. 
He  bestirred  himself  at  length,  and  adding  the 
high  courage  to  the  humility  of  his  Saint,  he  planned 
a  critical  and  constructive  treatise  on  religion. 
The  first  and  critical  part  was  published  one  year 
before  his  death,  under  the  title  "  The  Service  of 
Man."  It  is  a  sharp  attack,  more  serious  and  less 
ironical  in  its  spirit  than  that  of  Gibbon,  on  the 
moral  results  of  Christianity.  Left  as  a  torso, 
it  unhappily  suggests  a  wanton  attack. 

Any  attempt  to  reduce  Morison  to  an  organic 


276  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

unity,  as  he  loved  to  unify  men,  seems  to  be 
thwarted  by  the  presence  of  opposite  tendencies 
— gaiety  and  a  half-rehgious  brooding  on  things, 
the  worldly  and  the  spiritual  mind — each  fairly 
well  developed,  even  though  one  may  have  attained 
the  larger  empire.  In  him  there  was  something 
of  that  moral  dualism  which  he  points  out  in 
"  Madame  de  Maintenon."  Yet  his  friends  will 
not  be  inclined  to  apply  the  common  ethical  tests 
too  severely.  They  know  that  his  ever  youthful 
temperament  and  his  varied  responsiveness  to  the 
many  solicitations  of  human  life  were  a  prominent 
part  of  what  they  loved.  They  may  argue,  too, 
that  in  a  historian,  to  whom  in  a  special  sense 
nothing  human  should  be  foreign,  this  co- existence 
of  wide  and  vivid  interest  in  the  world,  with  a 
deeper  sentiment  for  the  great  mysteries,  con- 
stituted one  of  the  rarer  qualifications. 


CHAPTER    XVI 
HENRY     SIDGWICK 

I  FIRST  heard  of  Sidgwick  from  my  friend  Alfred 
West,  who  was  one  of  the  Cambridge  reading- 
party  that  joined  me  at  Gottingen  in  the  summer 
of  1867.^  When  later  he  went  up  to  Trinity, 
he  sent  me  a  little  account  of  Sidgwick's  manner 
of  lecturing.  Apropos  of  my  review  in  the 
Examiner  of  Sidgwick's  "  Methods  of  Ethics  " 
(1875)  he  told  me  a  good  story.  In  this  review 
I  had  remarked  on  the  absence  in  Sidgwick's 
book  of  a  sufficient  reference  to  the  work  of 
Herbert  Spencer,  and  West  followed  this  up  by 
asking  Sidgwick  why  he  had  not  dealt  more  fully 
with  the  bearings  of  the  doctrines  of  Evolution 
upon  ethical  problems.  The  answer  was  char- 
acteristically Sidgwickian.  "  In  the  first  place," 
he  said,  "  he  hadn't  omitted  the  reference ;  and  in 
the  second  place,  he  didn't  think  it  had  any  busi- 
ness there."  West  added  the  interesting  bit  of 
news  that  Spencer  wrote  to  Sidgwick  complaining 
of  "  the  irreparable  injury  "  done  to  him  by  his 
scanty  allusions  to  his  views.  "  Hundreds  of 
people,"  he  urged,  "  will  see  your  criticism  who 
will  never  see  my  remarks."  It  was  only  after 
I  See  above,  p.  98. 

277 


278  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

Sidgwick's  death  and  the  pubHcation  of  the 
"  Memoir  "  that  I  learned  his  favourable  estimate 
of  my  review  of  his  book. 

Neither  West  nor  myself,  when  we  met-  in 
Gottingen,  knew  that  Sidgwick  had  spent  two  years 
there  studying  Oriental  languages  under  Ewald. 
When,  many  years  later,  I  heard  of  this  curious 
parallelism  in  our  LehrjaJire,  I  felt  yet  more  closely 
attached  to  him  as  by  some  secret  decree  of  the 
Fates.  Epistolary  intercourse  between  us  began 
on  my  side.  In  1879,  when  my  dream  of  an  ade- 
quate fortune  received  a  nasty  blov/,  I  wrote  to 
Sidgwick  asking  him  if  he  thought  I  should  be 
likely  to  find  work  at  Cambridge,  either  by  lec- 
turing or  by  starting  a  private  hostel  for  women 
students.  He  responded  to  this  bold  suggestion 
of  mine  very  kindly.  And  thus  I  got  at  once  my 
first  glimpse  of  his  neat  little  handwriting  and  of 
his  kind  heart.  The  year  after  (1880),  I  was 
elected  a  member  of  the  resuscitated  3Ietaphysical 
Society,  and  I  remember  my  first  sight  of  Sidgwick 
at  one  of  the  few  meetings  of  the  moribund  society, 
when  he  was  accompanied  by  his  pupil  and  friend, 
Arthur  Balfour. 

In  1881  I  received  from  him  the  first  of  a  series 
of  testimonials  as  to  my  qualifications  for  teaching 
philosophy.  He  speaks,  of  course,  of  my  writings, 
which  he  lets  me  see  he  has  read,  referring  to  my 
last  volume,  "  Pessimism." 

Soon  after  this  he  invited  me  to  assist  in  the 
Moral  Science  work  of  his  University.  This  first 
appearance  in  the  august  seat  of  learning  took 
the  modest  form  of  reading  the  answers   to  some 


2'koto] 


[KUiotl  it  Fry. 


HEXHY    SIDCiWICK. 


To  face  p.  278. 


THE  MORAL   SCIENCES   TRIPOS  279 

papers  on  the  Theory  of  Education,  which  the  setter 
of  them  (James  Ward)  was  prevented  by  iUness 
from  undertaking.  The  following  year  brought 
me  the  more  important  proposal  to  examine  for 
the  Moral  Sciences  Tripos.  In  the  first  year  Sidg- 
wick  was  my  fellow^  examiner,  and  shov/ed  himself 
particularly  helpful,  and  he  followed  this  up  in 
the  second  year  by  sending  me  full  and  explicit 
directions  as  to  my  part  in  the  proceedings.  A 
more  flattering  attention  was  paid  me  later  when 
Sidgwick  sent  me  a  warm  invitation  to  stay  at 
his  house  ("Hill  Side,"  Chesterton  Road).  He  re- 
grets, he  writes,  that  he  cannot  give  me  any  v/ork 
on  Ascension  Day,  but  if  I  will  sta,y  over  Thursday 
night  he  will  take  me  to  feast  in  Hall  on  that  daj^. 
So  the  intimacy  gradually  grew  till,  in  1895,  when 
I  was  again  asked  to  examine  for  the  Tripos,  the 
old  form  of  accost,  "  My  dear  Sir,"  had  given  way 
first  to  "  Dear  Mr.  Sully  "  and  then  to  "Dear  Sully." 
Meanwhile  other  modes  of  collaboration  were 
making  us  better  known  to  one  another.  The 
year  1892  w^as  a  red-letter  day  in  the  progress  of 
our  friendship.  It  was  then  that  I  stood  for  the 
Chair  of  Philosophy  in  University  College  (London), 
rendered  vacant  by  Croom  Robertson's  death. 
Sidgwick  gave  me  a  strong  testimonial,  bringing 
out  precisely  the  strong  points  in  my  claim,  and 
even  hinting  at  differences  of  relative  claim 
between  myself  and  others.  I  was  told  that 
my  election  to  the  Chair  was  largely  due  to  his 
rccommendati  on .  ^ 

I  Sidgwick  here  reveals  a  characteristic  emphasized  by  Lord 
Bryee :  "  He  was  of  all  the  persons  I  have  known  the  least 


280  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

A  yet  more  uniting  association  with  Sidgwick 
was  involved  in  the  official  work  connected  with 
the  Second  International  Congress  of  Psychology 
(held  in  London  in  1892),  which  has  been  described 
in  Chapter  XII.  Sidgwick,  as  our  President, 
asked  me  to  take  charge  of  "  Orthodox  Psycho- 
logy?" ^s  distinct  from  "  Psychical  Research."  ^ 
This  collaboration  with  Sidgwick  helped  to  reveal 
and  to  endear  him  to  me.  Though  at  first  looking 
up  to  him  as  my  senior  and  teacher,  I  found  myself, 
under  the  softening  influence  of  his  geniality  and 
kindness,  little  by  little  stealing  into  the  warmer 
relation  of  friendship.  As  a  host  he  was  truly 
delightful.  His  unobtrusive  consideration  of  pos- 
sible wants  and  wishes  was  a  thing  to  win  the 
heart.  I  remember,  among  many  such  winsome 
attentions,  his  insisting  upon  carrying  my  bag,  as 
we  walked  from  the  room  where  we  did  the 
Tripos  work  to  his  home.  Another  and  more 
delicate  kind  of  consideration  was  shown  me  when, 
with  the  Sidgwicks,  I  attended  a  meeting  to  pro- 
mxOte  the  idea  of  a  Woman's  Secondary  Training 
College  for  Cambridge.  By  the  end  of  the  autumn 
afternoon  the  daylight  had  fallen  to  a  misleading 
degree  of  tenuity,  and  upon  stepping  down  from 
the  platform  I  slipped  and  fell.  Sidgwick,  who 
was  behind  me,  hastened  up,  and  at  once  brushed 
away  every  trace  of  annoyance  by  sweetly  re- 
disposed  to  be  warped  by  partisanship  "  {"  Studies  in  Con- 
temporary Biography,"  p.  334). 

I  In  the  "Memoir"  (p.  516)  he  speaks  of  my  branch  of  the 
subject  as  "  ordinary  experimental  psychology,"  while  that  of 
Myers  and  himself  he  styled  "the  extraordinary  element." 


AFFABILITY  281 

marking,  "  How  kind  of  you,  Sully  !  But  for 
your  warning  I  should  certainly  have  fallen." 
He  showed,  indeed,  something  like  an  art  of  divi- 
nation in  anticipating  and  finding  a  solution  for  my 
difficulties,  such  as  that  described  above. 

In  the  use  of  one  solvent  for  teasing  little  diffi- 
culties Sidgwick  was  a  past-master.  His  eye  had 
a  way  of  catching  the  humorous  side  of  a  situa- 
tion. When,  for  example,  at  the  Congress,  we  had 
to  decide  some  nice  question — whether  a  paper 
should  be  honoured  by  being  read  at  the  general 
afternoon  sitting,  or  whether  a  distinguished 
foreigner  should  be  allotted  such  or  such  a  lodging 
among  the  houses  which  offered  hospitality — Sidg- 
wick would  relieve  the  seriousness  of  the  problem 
by  some  deliciously  humorous  comments. 

In  addition  to  this  many-sided  and  tactful 
helpfulness,  my  co-operation  with  Sidgwick  dis- 
closed to  me  other  of  his  amiable  traits.  He 
seemed  to  me  to  have  nothing  of  that  insistent 
assertion  of  superiority  which  one  is  apt  to  attri- 
bute to  the  don.  Rather,  indeed,  did  he  appear 
to  be  wishing  to  bring  his  junior  forward,  himself 
taking  a  back  seat.  He  showed  this  in  a  number 
of  directions.  I  remember  one  afternoon,  when 
walking  with  him  and  Mrs.  Sidgwick  in  the 
Fellows'  garden  at  Trinity,  I  happened  to  call 
attention  to  some  fine  tree,  when  he  exclaimed, 
"  Why,  Sully,  do  you  know  the  names  of  trees  ?  " 
just  as  if  this  knowledge  were  one  of  the  arcana 
of  the  specialist.  He  showed  a  delightfully  un- 
philosophical  capacity  of  wonder,  which  he  would 
express   with    something   of  the   zest   of   a   child. 


282  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

Many  things  were  full  of  interest  to  him  which 
many  excellent  men  w^ould  have  passed  by  as  of 
trivial  import.  When,  for  example,  I  told  him 
of  Bain's  remark,  "  I  am  trying  to  keep  myself 
alive,"  he  said  with  a  curious  emphasis,  "  That's 
very  interesting." 

There  was  much  in  Sidgwick's  appearance  and 
manner  that  impressed  me.  The  beautiful  calm- 
ness of  the  face  exercised  a  strange  fascination 
on  me.  His  whole  appearance,  indeed,  seemed  to 
me  to  be  softened  and  ennobled  by  a  rare  gentle- 
ness of  disposition.  Some  of  the  distinguished 
guests  at  the  Congress  remarked  this,  and  it  was 
Ebbinghaus,  I  think,  who  observed  to  me,  "  He 
is  a  perfect  English  gentleman."  The  eye  that 
would  be  winsomeiy  turned  to  you  now  a^nd  again 
when  arguing  out  some  point  had  a  soupgon  of 
the  retirem.ent  and  the  self-effacement  of  the 
recluse,  while  the  soft  voice  seemed  ever  to  be 
breathing  a  message  of  peace.  Certain  move- 
ments deepened  this  impression  of  a  singularly 
gentle  nature.  More  particularly,  the  trick  so 
familiar  to  his  friends  of  stroking  his  long  white 
beard  when  talking,  struck  me  as  curiously  sug- 
gestive of  a  gentle,  peace-loving  and  conciliatory 
spirit.  Did  the  gesture,  I  wondered,  illustrate  one 
of  Darwin's  laws  of  emotional  expression  by 
serving  as  a  generalized  sym^bol  of  smoothing  out 
intellectual  or  other  difficulties  ? 

Even  the  stammer,  which  was  apt,  on  first 
hearing  it,  to  sound  confusing  and  even  painful, 
took  on  in  time  the  quality  of  an  additional  channel 
of   ethical   influence— perhaps   because   he   was   so 


CONVERSATION  283 

brave  and  pertinacious  in  surmounting  the  obstacle. 
It  has  been  remarked  that  the  stammer  seemed 
to  give  an  extra  point  to  some  of  his  piquant 
utterances.  I  should  especially  have  enjoyed  its 
effect  in  the  reported  conversation  with  a  German 
professor  :  "In  England  you  have  no  Gelehrten, 
have  you  ?  "  "  Indeed,  we  have."  "  So  !  What 
then  do  you  call  them?"  "We  call  them 
'  p-p-p-prigs.'  " 

Yet  the  rare  sort  of  pleasure  which  the  company 
of  Sidgwick  afforded  me  was  not  wholly  due  to 
the  winsomeness  of  his  moral  traits.  I  found  no 
less  fascinating  the  play  of  his  remarkable  mind. 
Despite  the  suggestion  of  a  dreamy  recluse  which 
his  manner  would  at  times  raise,  he  showed  him- 
self when  drawn  into  discussion  to  be  particu- 
larly alert  and  "  on  the  spot."  Here  he  would 
often  show  himself  to  be  as  much  the  learner 
as  the  originator  of  new  ideas.  He  had  a  large, 
magnanimous  way  of  meeting  the  suggestions  of 
other  thinkers ;  herein  showing  himself  perhaps 
to  be  more  of  a  philosopher  than  Herbert  Spencer, 
who  was  tightly  shut  in  by  the  barriers  of  a 
"  System."  What  I  think  he  especially  enjoyed 
when  taking  up  the  dialectical  rapier  was  to  get 
at  new  points  of  view.  A  considerable  part  of 
the  enjoyment  of  listening  to  him,  in  my  own 
case  at  any  rate,  arose  from  the  half-playful 
freshness  of  his  ways  of  approaching  a  subject. 
You  could  but  rarely  say  beforehand  on  what 
side  he  would  attack  it,  but  you  might  be  sure 
of  its  being  a  novel  and  an  arresting  side.  This 
held  good  of  all  sorts  of  problems,  from  that  of 


284  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

determining  the  "  class  "  to  be  assigned  to  a  given 
set  of  examination  papers  to  that  of  pronouncing 
upon  the  merits  of  a  new  novel.  A  considerable 
part  of  my  enjoyment  of  this  play  of  the  Sidgwick- 
ian  mind  came  from  the  amusing  appearance  of 
whimsicality  in  many  of  these  ways  of  quizzing  a 
subject. 

Though  a  diligent  and  penetrating  self-critic  at 
the  right  moment,  he  would  show  no  inclination 
to  go  back  upon  a  conclusion  after  it  had  once 
been  carefully  thought  out.  And  so  it  befell  that 
one  who,  as  I  conceived,  had  an  exceptional 
readiness  in  assimilating  others'  ideas  was  some- 
times spoken  of  as  obstinate  in  his  decisions. 

The  intellectual  enjoyment  which  I  derived 
from  the  closer  intercourse  with  him  was,  of  course, 
enhanced  by  my  previous  familiarity  with  his 
writings.  It  was  interesting  to  observe  how  those 
traits  which  I  had  learned  from  his  great  book, 
"  The  Methods  of  Ethics,"  to  regard  as^  character- 
istic, reappeared  in  his  talks  and  more  formal 
discussions.  Among  these  I  should  instance  the 
perfect  control  of  a  zealous  and  even  eager  quest 
of  truth  by  an  adequate  critical  caution,  and  the 
habit  of  viewing  things  and  their  values  in  their 
relations  to  one  another.  To  these  prominent 
intellectual  virtues  there  corresponded  such  moral 
characteristics  as  fairness  or  impartiality,  which 
made  him  for  me  quite  as  much  an  ideal  of  the 
just  man  as  of  the  wise  man.  And — to  touch  on 
a  characteristic  which  was  reminiscent,  not  merely 
of  his  Greek  masters  but  of  his  no  less  revered 
teacher,  John  Locke,  who  first  taught  us  a  modest 


TEMPERAMENT  285 

English  way  in  philosophy — Sidgwick  illustrated  in 
a  remarkable  degree  the  attitude  of  a  thinker  who 
consistently  subordinates  philosophic  speculation 
to  a  practical  end.  The  practicality  of  his  think- 
ing used  often  to  peep  out  in  our  little  discussions 
of  this  and  that  bit  of  concrete  business,  in  forms 
which  even  the  plain  man  could  recognize,  though 
to  me  they  appeared  now  and  again  to  show  the 
impress  of  a  speculative  habit. 

So  happy  an  intercourse  as  this  presupposed  a 
good  fund  of  common  sympathies  and  common 
attitudes  towards  persons  and  things.  Yet  I 
always  felt  that  there  were  differences  too,  both 
of  feeling  and  of  standpoint,  betwixt  us.  As  the 
fact  of  my  writing  a  book  upon  modern  pessimism 
suggests,  I  was  much  more  inclined  than  Sidgwick 
to  the  despondent  moods.^  Yet  such  tempera- 
mental differences  hardly  counted  as  checks  to 
our  happy  intimacy.  I  should  rather  say  that  his 
sunnier  outlook  upon  the  world,  as  well  as  his 
happy  assurance  of  life's  giving  him  "  a  main 
current  of  calm  well-being,"  drew  me  more 
strongly  towards  him,  as  towards  the  brightness 
and  warmth  of  a  southern  clime. 

Towards  the  end  of  his  life  he  would  talk  to 
me  about  his  insomnia,  which  he  knew  I  shared 
with  him.  He  gave  me  particulars  of  his  experi- 
ences. "  At  Cambridge  (he  writes)  I  am  liable 
to  run  down  to  five  and  a  half  [hours'  sleep],  four 
and  a  half,  three  and  a  half — the  latter  figure 
alarms   me."    But  five  days^  at  Brighton  brought 

^  The  "  Memoir,"  however,  speaks  of  his  wanting  only  to  be 
an  optimist. 


286  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

his  record  up  to  six  hours  again.  The  improving 
effect  of  Brighton  he  connected  not  only  with  the 
air,  but  with  the  soothing  effect  of  a  walk  by  the 
sea.^  He  told  me  also  of  other  remedies  for  sleep- 
lessness that  he  had  tried  ;  and  here  he  gives  a 
delightful  example  of  his  respect  for  the  Aristotelian 
"  mean  "  between  two  undesirable  extremes.  Thus 
he  finds  that  the  books  most  conducive  to  sleep  are 
those  which,  like  Adam  Smith's  "  Wealth  of 
Nations,"  always  remain  mildly  interesting  yet, 
through  their  familiarity,  never  become  over- excit- 
ing. Similarly  he  discovered  that  when  he  tried 
to  induce  sleep  by  solving  some  practical  problem, 
he  had  to  select  one,  such  as  planning  the  next 
summer's  holiday,  which  had  a  certain  importance 
without  being  pressing.  He  told  me  further  of 
his  wooing  sleep  by  repeating  verses,  and  added 
the  valuable  bit  of  information  that  he  found  his 
ability  to  commit  poetry  to  memory  in  no  way 
diminished  by  years. 

The  end  of  our  twenty  years  of  intercourse 
was  darkened  by  more  than  one  shadow.  His 
first  response  to  the  copy  of  my  protest  against 
the  Boer  War,  which  I  sent  him  (in  November 
1899),  was  sympathetic.  He  would  like,  he  wrote, 
"  to  help  in  preserving  the  independence  of  this 
brave  people."  He  thought  it,  however,  most 
undesirable  to  publish  anything  of  the  sort  at 
that  crisis.  Traces  of  a  like  good-will  towards  us 
Pro-Boers  disclosed  themselves  when,  towards  the 
end  of  the  year  (1899),  I  paid  him  my  last  visit 
at  Cambridge.  As  I  entered  the  library  he  pointed 
I  See  "Memoir,"  pp.  547-8. 


LAST   DAYS  287 

to  a  copy  of  the  Daily  Chronicle,  in  which  the 
editor  was  making  a  vahant  fight  for  the  Boer 
cause,  and  said,  with  a  rueful  sigh,  "  You  see  I 
still  read  my  Chronicle.  I  have  always  been  a 
lover  of  peace."  In  the  end,  however,  he  wrote 
me  declining  to  sign,  and  giving  his  reasons. ^ 

The  following  year  I  was  called  to  his  bedside 
in  a  nursing  home,  where  he  lay  after  undergoing  a 
serious  operation.  He  stretched  out  a  white  hand, 
and  remarked,  with  a  faint  smile,  "  Well,  Sully, 
you  see  me  reduced  to  the  part  of  a  spectator." 
To  this  I  replied  in  the  same  slightly  facetious 
key,  "  Yes,  but  it  will  still  be  the  part  of  an  Im- 
partial Spectator,"  which  brought  a  more  decided 
smile  from  the  wan  face.  Some  business  matters 
were  then  lying  rather  heavily  on  his  heart.  Two 
months  before  he  had  written  to  me  that,  in  view 
of  advancing  years,  he  wished  to  put  our  philo- 
sophical journal  Mind  on  a  financial  basis  inde- 
pendent of  his  personal  aid,  and  would  like  to 
propose  my  name  as  one  of  the  vice-presidents ; 
and  he  now  touched  on  the  project  of  forming  a 
new  Academy,  or  section  of  the  Royal  Society, 
which   was   at  the  moment   being    considered. 

I  first  heard  of  Sidgwick's  death  in  August,  on 
my  return  from  a  holiday  in  Norway.  On  look- 
ing back  I  see  our  leave-taking  three  months 
earlier  as  a  most  fitting  and  beautiful  termination 
to  a  comradeship  which,  in  the  midst  of  strenuous 
work,  seemed  to  be  ahvays  smiled  upon  and  made 
delectable  by  Sidgwick's  serene  spirit. 
I  See  '-'Memoir,"  pp.  581-2. 


CHAPTER    XVII 

HERBERT     SPENCER 

My  relations  with  Spencer  were  a  little  mixed. 
I  should  almost  smile  at  the  suggestion  of  our 
having  ever  been  friends.  By  this  I  do  not  mean 
that  I  had  too  much  awe  of  the  great  man  to 
dare  to  think  of  him  under  a  name  so  equalizing 
as  "  friend."  Other  men  I  had  known  and 
revered  were,  I  never  doubted,  true  friends,  who 
were  not  only  needed  by  me  but  seemed  recipro- 
cally to  have  something  like  a  need  of  me.  As 
his  "Autobiography"  tells  us,  Spencer  had  friends — 
like  Huxley  and  Morley,  for  example.  In  a  letter 
I  received  from  him  he  spoke  of  a  serviceable 
editor  as  his  "  friend."  But  I  always  thought 
of  him  as  being  so  deeply  absorbed  in  his  vast 
philosophic  venture  that  any  warmth  of  intimacy 
could  come  to  him  only  by  way  of  a  recognized 
discipleship,  or  at  least  of  a  large  acceptance  of 
his  teaching. 

I  first  saw  him  by  appointment  when  he  wanted 
to  engage  me  to  collect  relevant  facts  for  his 
sociological  I  tables.  He  was  then  residing  in  a 
boarding-house  in  Queen's  Gardens,  Bayswater. 
I  was  struck  by  the  lofty  brow  set  off  by  long 
tassels  of  hair  about  the  ears.     His  spare  figure 

288 


IIKIiBKHT     SI'KNC  Kl{. 


To  face  p.  288. 


THE   BOARDING-HOUSE  289 

had  just  a  suggestion  of  a  severe  temperance  oi 
habit.  The  Bayswater  lunch  was  not  tempting 
to  an  excessive  indulgence  of  appetite.  As  we 
sat  and  talked,  he  proceeded  to  explain  to  me, 
with  a  characteristic  reference  to  first  principles, 
wh}'^  in  his  case  the  philosopher  should  select 
a  London  boarding-house  as  dwelling-place.  A 
boarding-house,  he  urged,  at  least  when  it  was  in 
Bayswater,  would  effectually  protect  him  against 
bores,  both  those  who  wanted  seriously  to  talk 
philosophy  and  those  who  were  irreverently  bent 
upon  "  pumping "  a  philosopher.  I  was  able 
to  understand  his  wishing  to  shut  out  all 
"shoppy"  talk  at  meal-time;  what  puzzled  me 
was  how  such  a  severe  lover  of  abstract  thought 
could  tolerate  the  tittle-tattle  about  passing 
nothings  which  is  apt  to  pass  for  conversation 
at  a  London  boarding-house  table.  He  gave  me 
no  hint  of  possessing  a  self-protective  humour, 
such  as  that  with  which  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
endows  his  dear  professor,  helping  him  to  get  a 
rich  entertainment  out  of  boarding-house  talk. 
Nor  could  he,  I  suppose,  as  yet  venture  to  clap 
on  those  terrible  ear-flaps  by  which,  later,  he 
would  extinguish  human  vocalization  when  it 
began  to  weary  him. 

He  began  by  making  a  smiling  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  fact  that  I  had  been  one  of  the 
early  subscribers  to  his  system  of  philosophy, 
which  he  was  at  this  time  issuing  in  fasci- 
cules ;  and  then  he  proceeded  to  sound  me  on  my 
willingness  to  assist  him  in  collecting  facts  for 
his  sociological  tables. 

20 


29Q  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

I  naturally  compared  Spencer  with  Alexander 
Bain,  the  other  philosopher  whose  acquaintance 
I  was  making  about  the  same  time.  Both  were 
spare  of  body  and  of  a  slightly  ascetic  aspect. 
But  the  dissimilarities  were  greater  than  the  simi- 
larities. When  measured  with  the  wee  dimensions 
of  the  Scotch  professor,  Spencer's  figure  was  of 
an  impressive  height.  In  facial  aspect  the  con- 
trast was  quite  as  great.  Bain's  odd  little  piquant 
features  were  charged  with  alertness,  and  the 
rapid  flow  of  his  speech  and  movements  deepened 
the  impression  of  a  mind  sharply  focused  for 
the  tangible  world.  Spencer's  face,  on  the  other 
hand,  held  a  deep  imperturbable  repose,  and  some- 
thing of  the  large  detaching  philosophic  vision. 
His  speech,  too,  was  slov/  and  meditative,  forming 
a  curious  contrast  to  Bain's  more  staccato  kind 
of  utterance.  Not  less  remarkable  was  the  con- 
trast between  the  quiet,  complacent  smile  of 
Spencer  and  the  explosive  and  slightly  malicious 
laugh  of  the  Aberdeen  professor. 

After  our  first  meeting  we  exchanged  civilities 
now  and  again.  Spencer  would  sometimes,  like 
Bain,  ask  me  to  meet  him  in  the  vestibule  of  the 
Athenseum  Club.  But  as  he  was  considerably 
more  of  a  recluse  than  I,  most  of  our  intercourse 
was  epistolary.  He  wrote  me  after  I  had  re- 
viev/ed  Sidgwick's  "  Methods  of  Ethics."  I  had 
suggested  in  this  notice  that  more  space  might 
have  been  given  to  the  bearings  of  the  doctrine 
of  Evolution  upon  Ethics.  Spencer  was  excep- 
sionally  vigilant — even  for  an  author — in  noting 
anything  which  seemed  to  have  a  bearing  upon 


THE  ATHEN^UM   CLUB  291 

his  views,  and  he  wrote  to  me  expressing  his  satis- 
faetion  at  my  remarks.  To  Sidgwick  also,  as 
I  have  said,  he  wrote  a  pathetic  letter  com- 
plaining of  the  "  irreparable  injmy  "  which  had 
been  done  him  by  Sidgwick's  nonchalant  treat- 
ment of  him.i 

One  mark  of  Spencer's  favour  I  must  not  omit. 
He  refers  in  a  footnote  to  an  article  of  mine  upon 
"  The  Basis  of  Musical  Sensation."  Grant  Allen 
called  my  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  was  the 
only  instance  of  SjDcncer's  having  expressed  his 
indebtedness  to  a  contemporary  v/riter,  even  in 
a  footnote. 

Spencer  further  showed  his  good-will  by  offering 
to  put  up  my  name  for  the  Athena;um  Club.  I 
regretted  that  he  had  not  asked  somebody  with 
a  larger  coefficient  of  clubbability  than  I  could 
boast  of.  Apropos  of  the  Athenaeum,  an  amusing 
story  was  told  of  his  having  been  allowed  to 
improve  the  system  of  ventilation  or  some  other 
part  of  the  Club  arrangements,  and  of  the  disas- 
trous results  which  followed  the  attempt  to  apply 
first  principles  to  a  knotty  practical  problem. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  seventies  I  wrote  asking 
him  to  accept  some  office  or  title.  He  was  in 
Cairo  at  the  time,  and  sent  me  a  long  letter  all 
in  his  own  handwriting.  I  was,  of  course,  flattered 
by  this  attention  until  I  read  the  postscript,  which 
ran  as  follows  :  "  Had  I  with  me  a  copy  of  the 
lithographed  circular  which  I  use  for  abridging  my 
correspondence,  I  should  write  this  reply  on  the 
fly-leaf."  His  sociability  was  carefully  measured 
»  Cf.  the  chapter  on  Henry  Sidgwick,  p.  277. 


292  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

out  and  never  allowed  to  interfere  with  his  great 
philosophic  undertaking.  He  joined  the  SaVile 
Club,  in  addition  to  the  Athenaeum,  in  order  to 
be  able  to  enjoy  a  game  of  billiards  on  a  Sunday. 
He  would  even  now  and  then  visit  the  homes 
of  some  admiring  friends  ;  and  an  amusing  story 
relates  that  on  one  of  these  occasions  the  dietetic 
and  other  exactions  involved  in  the  due  satis- 
faction of  the  philosopher's  system  of  needs  put 
so  severe  a  strain  upon  the  devotion  of  his  hosts 
that,  after  a  long  endeavour  to  live  up  to  the 
situation,  they  fled  and  left  the  philosopher  in 
sole  possession  of  the  house. 

In  the  nineties,  when  he  moved  to  St.  John's 
Wood,  I  wrote  from  Hampstead  expressing  my 
pleasure  at  hearing  that  we  were  now  to  be 
neighbours.  I  proposed  to  call  upon  him,  and, 
knowing  the  inelasticity  of  his  habits,  asked  him 
to  name  the  most  convenient  hour  for  a  call. 
He  surprised  me  by  suggesting  the  not  too  hospit- 
able hour  of  a  quarter  to  two  or  two  o'clock. 
This  forced  upon  me  a  long  walk  upon  a  hurried 
early  lunch,  which  had  cut  into  my  morning's 
work.  The  interview  was  of  the  shortest,  and  on 
both  sides,  I  think,  strained.  I  had  hardly  sat 
down  and  ventured  a  few  words,  when  he  began 
to  betray  all  the  signs  of  post-prandial  somnolence. 
I  at  once  came  to  the  rescue  by  saying,  "  Now, 
Mr.  Spencer,  will  you  please  be  quite  frank  with 
me,  and  tell  me  whether  you  are  not  in  the  habit 
of  taking  a  rest  after  lunch."  A  heavenly  smile 
answered  my  inquiry.  On  my  way  back  I  mused 
on    the    unpredictable  possibilities  of  human    be- 


FOREIGN   APPRECIATION  293 

haviour  when  a  man  has  a  system  of  philosophy 
to  carry  about  with  him.  I  made  one  or  two 
further  attempts  to  see  him  when  he  was  hving 
at  Brighton,  but  was  put  off  with  characteristic 
excuses. 

These  httle  rebuffs  left  no  smack  of  bitterness 
behind.  I  was  beginning  to  know  my  philosopher. 
More  than  most  men,  I  fancy,  who  are  burdened 
with  what  they  believe  to  be  an  undertaking  of 
supreme  importance  to  mankind,  Spencer  attri- 
buted to  the  worker  the  unique  value  of  the  work. 
Thus  it  happens  that,  in  reading  his  "  Autobio- 
graphy "  and  other  writings,  we  are  tempted  to 
exclaim  now,  "  What  splendid  devotion !  "  and  now, 
"  What  colossal  egoism  !  " 

Between  these  less  agreeable  manifestations  of 
the  self- emancipation  of  the  superman,  he  gave 
me  signs  now  and  again  of  a  real  impulse  towards 
friendliness.  He  seemed  to  be  almost  touched  by 
my  attempt  to  get  up  a  congratulatory  address  to 
him,  a  proposal  which  was  ultimately  abandoned 
in  favour  of  a  memorial  portrait.  There  is  a 
peculiar  sweetness  in  the  reward  of  virtue,  when 
the  virtue  consists  in  serving  a  sublime  philo- 
sopher and  the  reward  is  a  heavenly  smile. 

I  was  in  Italy  when  Spencer  died,  and  was 
much  struck  by  the  Italians'  appreciation  of  his 
work.  From  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  at  Rome 
a  message  of  condolence,  full  of  Italian  warmth, 
and  beautiful  Italian  language  too,  was  sent  to 
our  country  on  the  loss  of  her  great  citizen.  On 
reading  it,  I  tried  in  vain  to  conceive  of  the  English 
House  of  Commons   expressing  in  like  manner  its 


294  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

sorrow  on  the  death  of  a  distinguished  foreign 
thinker.  So  far  was  such  a  message  from  our  frigid 
Enghsh  customs  that,  as  the  official  Itahan  paper 
La  Tribuna  pointed  out  in  an  article  headed  "  The 
Coldness  of  the  English  Public,"  our  legislators 
appear  to  have  taken  no  notice  of  Spencer's  death. 
The  journal  added  that  Spencer  had  been  "  the 
great  philosopher  of  the  nineteenth  century  for 
all  countries  except  his  own." 

This  utterance  of  the  Italians  was  no  doubt  an 
exaggeration  ;  for  Germany,  at  any  rate,  had 
not  so  accepted  him.  Yet  their  pronouncement 
may  help  us  to  "  place  "  Spencer  in  the  philo- 
sophical scale.  Like  the  Ge^-man  system-maker, 
Von  Hartmann,  the  philosopher  of  "  The  Uncon- 
scious," he  was  a  thinker  for  the  people  rather 
than  for  the  academic  world  ;  and  he  was,  I  think, 
most  highly  prized  by  Americans  and  the  Latin 
races.  His  work  has  had  for  all  of  us  its  real 
and  considerable  value.  He  rendered  a  worthy 
contribution  to  thought  by  bringing  the  large 
aspects  of  the  world,  and  of  humanity  too,  to- 
gether under  the  new  concept  of  evolution — 
loosely  defined  as  the  general  movement  of  things 
in  orderly  progress  from  a  sim.ple  to  a  complex 
form.  By  the  time  of  his  death  his  ideas, 
in  a  modified  form  no  doubt,  had  become  so 
largely  assimilated  into  our  thought  and  our  forms 
of  speech  that  we  had  half  forgotten  their  origi- 
nator. We  of  to-day  all  talk  of  Evolution,  whether 
we  are  thinking  of  the  material  cosmos,  or  of  life 
and  mind,  or  even  of  art,  morals,  and  religion. 
It  is  too    soon    to  judge  of    how    posterity    will 


SYNTHETIC   PHILOSOPHY  295 

estimate  the  Synthetic  Philosophy :  at  present 
there  is  a  reaction  against  it.  But  I  cannot 
say  how  much  Spencer  was  to  me  in  the  early 
stages  of  my  thinking.  His  clearness,  which, 
after  the  fog  of  some  metaphysicians,  came  as 
a  delightful  refreshment ;  his  way  of  bringing 
remote  facts  together  by  a  ''  fetch  of  similarity," 
as  Bain  would  say ;  the  splendid  constructive 
ingenuity  of  his  mind — these  qualities  made  the 
reading  of  those  heavy  volumes  a  delight  :  a 
delight  I  still  feel  in  a  modified  degree  after 
studying  what  scientists  and  philosophers  have 
said  of  his  limitations. 

Shortly  after  Spencer's  death  my  old  friend 
Leslie  Stephen,  in  a  letter  dictated  to  his 
daughter,  touched  upon  the  event.  Like  all  of 
us,  he  had  learned  mxuch  from  Spencer.  Yet  his 
message  to  riie  in  this  letter,  shortly  before  his 
own  death,  was  this  :  "I  hope  that  other  men 
will  be  born  with  the  same  vigour  of  mind 
as  Herbert  Spencer,  but  trust  that  they  won't 
think  it  necessary  to  invent  new  philosophical 
schemes  for  the  world." 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

LESLIE    STEPHEN 

I  HAD  heard  of  Stephen  by  the  beginning  of  the 
seventies.  His  name  became  famihar  to  me  in 
the  pages  of  the  Fortnightly,  and  I  was  deeply 
impressed  by  the  high  courage  as  well  as  the 
devotion  to  truth  shown  in  his  "  Essays  on  Free- 
thinking  and  Plain-speaking." 

It  was  about  four  years  after  his  appointment 
to  the  editorship  of  the  Comhill  Magazine  (in 
1871)  that  I  first  came  to  know  him.  I  had 
already  seen  him  at  one  of  the  Sunday  after- 
noon gatherings  at  the  Priory ;  and  I  recall  him 
seated  there  in  the  social  crescent  at  the  end 
nearer  the  door  and  away  from  the  window 
near  which  George  Eliot  was  accustomed  to  sit. 
His  distinguished  aspect  could  not  but  impress 
one  even  in  an  assembly  which  was  carefully 
selected.  I  seem  to  see  still,  as  in  some 
Venetian  portrait,  the  slight  yet  commanding 
figure,  the  long,  finely  moulded  head  and  face, 
showing  something  of  the  delicacy  which  Watts 
perhaps  rather  over-emphasized  in  his  portrait, 
yet  something  also  of  virile  keenness  and 
strength.      I    remember    the     impression    of   rich 

290 


LESLIE    STEPHEN. 


To  face  p.  296. 


AT  HOME  297 

colouring  given  by  the  bright,  blue  eyes  peering 
out  from  under  the  shaggy  eyebrows,  and  made 
the  brighter  by  the  contrast  with  the  dark,  warm 
tones  of  the  abundant  hair,  moustache,  and  beard. 
Like  myself,  he  had  cast  aside  the  clerical  pro- 
fession, and  his  dress — especially  the  workaday 
velveteen  jacket — had  a  look  of  punctuating  the 
escape  from  the  fetters  of  "  orders  "  into  worldly 
freedom.  Our  first  meeting,  at  his  house  in  Hyde 
Park  Gate  South,  was  an  event  for  me.  I  wished 
to  discuss  possibilities  of  work  for  the  Comhill, 
and  some  one,  probably  Morley  or  Lewes,  had 
given  me  an  introduction  to  him.  It  was  an 
afternoon  in  the  fall  of  the  year.  Stephen  had 
recently  lost  his  first  wife,  and  I  was  warned  that 
he  was  just  now  very  much  of  a  recluse.  His 
accost  had  in  it,  behind  its  evident  cordiality,  a 
touch  of  awkwardness,  as  of  one  who  was  forcing 
himself  to  forget  the  books  which  tugged  at  his 
hands  impatiently.  As  I  expounded  my  literary 
aims  he  grew  interested  and  sympathetic.  The 
low,  finely  modulated  tones  of  his  voice  impressed 
me  hardly  less  than  the  kind  and  helpful  dis- 
position which  his  words  expressed.  They  were 
the  first  of  a  long  series  of  encouraging  talks. 

The  retired  position  of  the  house  suggested  the 
student  who  is  a  lover  of  quiet.  On  my  first 
visits  he  used  to  take  me  up  to  the  top  of  the 
house,  where  he  had  a  den  far  removed  from  noises. 
After  his  second  marriage  and  a  considerable 
enlargement  of  his  family  circle,  he  had  his  study 
downstairs  in  a  large  room  roofed  by  a  glass  dome. 
I  loved  to  think  of  him  in  these  peaceful  surround- 


298  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

ings;  though  I  may  now  and  then  have  felt  a 
momentary  twinge  as  I  contrasted  them  with 
the  intricate  network  of  noises  against  which  I 
have  had  to  wage  so  long  a  war. 

I  soon  found  him  a  most  gentle  and  considerate 
editor.  My  first  offering,  "  A  German  Peasant 
Romance,"  was  accepted  and  printed  straight  off, 
the  honour  of  its  appearance  in  Thackeray's  old 
magazine  giving  me  a  moment's  sense  of  giddy 
exaltation.  But  I  immediately  followed  up  this 
success  with  a  dry,  reflective  article  on  "  Self- 
esteem  and  Self- admiration."  Stephen  was 
patience  itself  under  this  and  other  provocations. 
Indeed,  he  seemed  to  go  dangerously  far  in  ex- 
onerating if  not  in  encouraging  my  rashness,  not 
only  by  accepting  the  article,  but  by  writing : 
"  M}^  readers  will  stand  a.  fragment  of  moralizing 
now  and  then,  to  balance  the  mass  of  light  litera- 
ture." Unduly  elated  by  this  success,  I  grew 
bolder,  and  proposed  an  article  on  "  The  Pessimist's 
View  of  Life."  This  was  too  much  even  for  the 
kindest  of  editors.  "  The  ordinary  parson,"  he 
wrote,  "  who  is  the  general  object  of  my  dread, 
has  never  heard  of  Schopenhauer ;  but  he  may 
vaguely  scent  infidelity  in  a  German  name."  I 
regret  to  say  that  later  on,  despite  this  warning, 
I  ventured  to  tempt  him  with  the  name  of 
Spinoza ;  when  he  administered  a  well-deserved 
rebuke. 

From  1875  until  1882,  when  Stephen  gave  up 
the  editorship  of  the  magazine,  I  sent  him  a  fair 
number  of  articles,  including  serious  ones,  such 
as  "Dreams,"  "Animal  Music,"    and   "Lessing," 


THE   CORNHILL  MAGAZINE  299 

and  lighter  ones  on  such  subjects  as  "A  Strip  of 
Suffolk  Sea-board,"  "  Our  First  Glacier  Expedi- 
tion," and  "  Babies  and  Science."  All  the  articles 
I  sent  him  were  accepted  save  one,  and  only  once 
did  I  receive  from  him  that  vexatious  editorial 
injunction  to  shorten  a  paper — the  one  on  "  Ober- 
mann,"  if  I  remember  aright.  He  liked  to  say 
something  encouraging  about  my  articles ;  and  I 
remember  his  telling  me,  with  a  touch  of  character- 
istic humour,  that  my  article  on  dreams  had  ex- 
cited attention,  the  usual  proof  being  that  he 
"  has  received  more  MSS.  on  the  same  subject." 

My  good  fortune  was  no  doubt  furthered  by 
the  growing  intimacy  between  us,  and  especially 
by  the  rich  opportunities  of  increasing  our  mutual 
knowledge  supplied  by  the  excursions  of  the  Sun- 
day Tramps.  But  there  is  reason  to  think  that 
my  contributions  interested  him  for  their  own 
sake.  He  talked  to  me  about  them.  He  did 
more ;  he  went  back  and  read  my  first  book,  try- 
ing to  get  at  the  secret  of  music— the  enjoyment 
of  which  for  him,  he  wrote  to  me,  was  zero  if  not 
a  negative  quantity — and  at  the  meaning  of  modern 
pessimism.  Later  on  he  brought  his  own  ex- 
periences and  his  reading  to  bear  upon  what  I 
was  writing  about.  Among  the  subjects  which 
drew  him  out  in  this  way,  I  remember  dreams, 
children's  ways,  and  the  precocity  of  genius. 
Apropos  of  dreams,  he  told  me  of  one  that  he  had 
when  walking  in  Switzerland  after  a  sleepless 
night.  "  I  fell  asleep,"  he  wrote,  "  as  I  walked, 
or  half  asleep,  and,  as  I  got  near  Chamonix,  saw 
both    the    real    objects    and    the    dream-objects. 


300  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

I  met,  e.g.,  Cambridge  friends  coming  along  the 
road,  who  vanished  as  I  approached,  or  saw  carts 
or  houses  which  fitted  in  with  the  scenery  and 
then  disappeared." 

The  interest  was  reciprocal.  I  was  not  only 
an  eager  reader  of  his  books,  but  while  wrrting 
for  his  journal  I  had  the  pleasure  of  reviewing 
two  of  them,  "  The  History  of  English  Thought  in 
the  Eighteenth  Century  "  and  "  The  Science  of 
Ethics."  Of  the  latter  he  wrote  me  :  "I  read 
your  review  in  the  P.M.G.  (Pall  Mall  Gazette), 
knowing  it  to  be  yours  both  from  Morley's 
statement  and  internal  evidence.  It  gave  me 
much  pleasure,  which  reviews  very  seldom  do ; 
especially  for  one  thing  which  you  said  and  which 
I  shall  not  specify  :  which,  however,  revealed  to 
me  not  only  a  critic  but  a  kindly  sympathetic 
reader." 

There  was,  I  suspect,  in  his  kindly  interest  in 
my  work  another  ingredient.  Were  we  not  both, 
despite  the  differences  in  our  years  and  status, 
scribblers  who  were  supremely  interested  in  the 
processes  of  thought  ?  And  may  he  not,  in  con- 
nection with  my  effort  to  secure  standing  room 
in  the  literary  crowd,  have  been  influenced  by 
a  fact  which  he  brought  out  years  later  in  his  little 
book  on  Hobbes  :  "  Popular  opinion  looks  upon 
philosophers  with  a  dash  of  amused  contempt "  ? 
While  fully  recognizing,  however,  the  existence  of 
these  favourable  circumstances  in  my  case,  I 
feel  sure,  both  from  my  later  and  fuller  knowledge 
of  him  and  from  what  other  contributors  have 
told    me,    that    Stephen   was    in    general    a    most 


JAMES   PAYN  301 

considerate  editor,  who  disliked  nothing  so  much 
as  to  disappoint  the  hopes  of  a  promising  young 
writer. 

As  our  acquaintance  ripened,  bits  of  friendly 
chat  crept  into  our  business  letters.  Now  he 
would  write  that  he  was  going  to  be  married— a 
step  which  involved  a  shifting  of  his  domicile 
from  No.  11  to  No.  31  Hyde  Park  Gate ;  now 
that  he  had  just  taken  leave  of  poor  W.  K.  Clifford, 
who  was  sailing  for  Madeira. 

Stephen's  retirement  from  the  Cornhill  hardly 
involved  a  loosening  of  the  bond  of  intimacy 
between  us.  We  had  by  this  time  become  fast 
friends,  and  I  continued  to  be  in  touch  with  him 
on  Tramp  Sundays  and  at  other  times.  The  last 
service  he  rendered  me  as  editor  was  to  recom- 
mend me  to  his  successor,  James  Payn  the  novelist. 

I  wrote  one  or  two  papers  for  Payn,  but  I  did 
not  expect  to  find  in  a  novelist  another  Leslie 
Stephen.  Payn,  by  the  way,  was  towards  the 
close  of  his  life  a  great  sufferer,  and  he  had  a  place 
in  the  list  of  invalids,  along  with  Croom  Robertson 
and  others,  whom  Stephen  sedulously  visited.  As 
his  readers  know,  Payn  was  a  great  punster.  But 
Stephen  (or  was  it  F.  Pollock  or  other  Tramp  ?) 
once  told  us  of  a  particularly  good  pun  perpe- 
trated u2:)on  Payn.  He  was  climbing  somewhere 
— probably  in  Switzerland — with  some  companions 
in  better  trim  than  himself,  when  one  of  these 
remarked :  "  The  labour  we  delight  in,  physics 
pain"  (Payn). 

He  used  to  talk  freely  to  me  about  the  "  Dic- 
tionary of  National  Biography."     From  these  con- 


302  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

fidences  I  learnt  what  a  keen  scent  he  had  for 
out-of-the-way  information,  and  what  a  splendid 
pertinacity  he  showed — often  in  very  indifferent 
health — in  making  the  "Dictionary"  as  good  as  it 
could  be.  I  gathered  from  them,  too,  how  much 
trouble  he  had  in  keeping  his  team  of  contributors 
together,  as  well  as  in  securing,  along  with  the 
inclusion  of  every  kind  of  fame,  a  certain  pro- 
portion in  the  lengths  of  the  articles. 

Stephen  v/as  not  only  himself  an  athlete,  but 
a  lover  of  popular  atliletics.  When  I  was  staying 
with  him  at  his  house  in  St.  Ives  he  took  me  over 
to  Penzance  to  see  som^e  Cornish  wrestling.  And 
in  constructing  the  programme  of  his  "Dictionary  " 
he  paid  due  respect  to  the  heroes  of  the  prize- 
fighting and  wrestling  rings. 

The  idea  of  the  Sunday  Tramps  occurred  to 
Stephen — who  was  our  "  chief  guide  "  or,  briefly, 
"  chief  "—in  the  autumn  of  1879.  ^  He  himself 
assigns  the  genesis  of  the  fraternity  to  a  desire 
"  not  to  lock  up  their  summer  hobby-horse  for 
the  greater  part  of  the  year,  but  to  give  him  a 
periodical  outing  even  through  the  winter."  ^ 
Other  motives  probably  supported  the  roving 
impulse,  such  as  the  wish  to  get  away  once  a 
fortnight  from  gloomy  bricks  and  mortar  and  to 
have  the  whole  day  free  for  talking  and  for 
getting  to  know  one's  friends  better. 

If  not  the  originator  of  the  plan,  Stephen  became 
from  the  outset  its  inspirer.     He  was  made  to  be 

»  Sec  Maitland,  "  Life  and  Letters  of  Leslie  Stephen," 
pp,  357  ff. 


THE   SUNDAY  TRA^IPS  30$ 

the  chief  of  such  a  band,  and  in  that  capacity 
was  able  at  once  to  carry  on  his  Alpine  and 
other  walks,  and  to  gather  about  him  a  select 
and  sympathetic  company.  At  first  his  walking 
powers  stood  in  the  way  of  leadership.  His 
tall  figure,  with  unusual  length  of  arm  and 
leg,  not  only  stood  him  in  good  stead  in  his 
Alpine  rock-clim.bing,  but  gave  him  an  unfair 
advantage  as  guide  in  a  walking  club.  As  you 
first  saw  him  start  at  wliat  looked  like  a  quite 
moderate  pace,  you  had  no  inkling  of  the  ground 
covered  by  tiie  sweep  of  that  leg.  But  our 
kindly  chief  soon  learned  to  adjust  his  step  to 
the  limitations  of  average  legs  and  lungs.  He 
grew,  indeed,  tenderly,  almost  penitentially,  solici- 
tous not  to  overwalk  the  feebler  members  of  the 
corps,  and  he  purposely  selected  shorter  walks 
now  and  again  to  suit  their  needs.  For  the  rest, 
he  was  a  model  guide.  He  had  something  of  a 
bird's  instinct  for  direction,  and  would  often 
amuse  us,  Vv^hen  on  the  trail,  by  his  keenness  of 
scent  for  a  new  short-cut  not  indicated,  on  the 
maps.  Among  the  qualifications  of  a  guide  which 
he  enumerated  in  the  "  Peripatetics  "  ^  one  is,  that 
he  should  never  condescend  to  ask  his  way  or 
admit  that  he  has  gone  wrong.  This  high  inde- 
pendence once  led  to  a  quaint  little  scene,  when 
our  chief,  standing  with  his  pack  at  a  cross  way, 
hesitated  for  a  moment,  and  some  well-mean- 
ing native  impulsively  came  forward  and  prof- 
fered the   use  of  his  topographical  knowledge.     It 

»  Papers   contributed  to  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  June  and 
July  1880. 


304  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  his  fondness  for 
an  approximation  to  a  bee-hne  was  apt  to  push 
him  into  something  indistinguishable  from  a  tres- 
pass. I  remember  a  comic  incident  which  arose 
out  of  this  boldness.  We  were  stopped  by  a 
keeper,  whom  we  compelled  to  go  through  the 
formality  of  taking  our  names  and  addresses, 
including  those  of  some  distinguished  lawyers. 

The  planning  of  the  walk  was  left  to  our  chief. 
Every  fortnight  a  post- card  would  arrive  giving 
us  the  route,  the  hours  of  trains,  and  sometimes 
the  place  for  lunch.  The  train  would  take  us 
some  twenty-five  miles  out  of  town,  and  our 
tramp  consisted  of  a  walk  from  one  station  to  a 
second  lying  somewhere  about  the  same  distance 
from  London.  We  joined  our  chief  at  the  de- 
parture station,  and  we  were  sure  to  find  him  not 
far  from  the  booking-office,  looking  about  him 
with  something  of  the  solicitude  of  a  shepherd 
when  counting  his  sheep.  Our  numbers  would 
vary  from  two  or  three  to  a  goodly  team  of  eight 
or  more,  in  which  latter  case  there  would  arise 
the  need  of  close  packing  in  the  second-class 
smoking  compartment. 

On  issuing  from  the  train  we  formed  ourselves, 
under  the  influence  of  some  complex  system  of 
attraction,  into  the  rough  semblance  of  an 
irregular  squad,  of  which  each  line  consisted  of 
from  about  two  to  five  men.  But  a  process  of 
disintegration  soon  began  to  reduce  the  length 
of  the  lines,  transforming  us  into  a  longer 
procession  of  groups  of  two  or  three.  In  the 
early  days  of  the  Tramps  our  chief  brought  with 


ROUTES  305 

him  a  collie,  who  would  carry  out  a  much  longer 
tramp  of  his  own,  running  to  and  fro  along  the  whole 
length  of  our  line,  and,  apparently,  by  his  barkings 
trying  to  persuade  us  to  keep  closer  together. 

Our  route  would  be  determined  by  various  con- 
siderations at  which  we  failed  to  guess.  The 
walk  itself,  withdrawn  as  much  as  possible  from 
j.ighways,  was  our  primary  aim.  A  long,  tiring 
march  over  a  level  road  was  generally  avoided. 
Our  chief  had  a  special  fondness  for  the  broken 
country  of  Surrey  and  Kent  with  its  alternating 
hills  and  valleys  and  its  spacious  commons. 
He  liked  hardly  less  a  wooded  slope  skirting  the 
Thames,  and  such  quiet  recesses  as  Epping  Forest 
and  Burnham  Beeches.  He  had  the  Saturday 
Reviewer''s  contempt  for  gush  ;  and  though  when 
we  had  climbed  a  Surrey  height,  such  as  Leith 
Hill  or  Hindhead,  he  would  let  us  sit  for  a 
minute  or  so,  he  expected  us  to  enjoy  the 
beauty   of  the   unfolded  scene   in   severe  silence. 

As  "  Peripatetics  "  show  us,  his  imagination  at 
such  a  moment  might  travel  back  to  his  old  Alpine 
haunts.  So  tiny  a  height  as  St.  Martha  in  Surrey 
recalled  his  beloved  mountains  through  its  like- 
ness to  a  Swiss  chapel  perched  on  an  Alp  above 
a  gorge.  Another  trace  of  his  familiarity  with 
mountains  appears  in  a  letter  which  he  sent  me 
once  when  I  wished  to  join  the  party  en  route. 
He  proposed  the  summit  of  Highdown  Ball,  in 
Surrey,  and  after  carefully  indicating  its  situation, 
added,  "  It  resembles  the  mountain  in  Raphael's 
'  Transfiguration.'  " 

Yet,  lover  of  nature  though    he  was,  our  chief 

21 


806  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

prized    hardly    less    those    spots    which    attracted 
chiefly  by  their  historical  and  literary  associations. 
His    memory    was    charged    with    interesting    lore 
about   the   places   we   visited.     He   did   not   press 
his  knowledge  unpleasantly  upon  us,  but  only  let 
drop  a  word  now  and  again.     It  is  in  the  **  Peri- 
patetics "   that   one   m.ust   seek   for  his   delightful 
musings    on   these   m^emorials    of  the   past.     Now 
it  was  a  glimpse  of  Albury  Park,   Surrey,   where 
Drummond    entertained    Edward    Irving    and    the 
Irvingites,  that  drew   from  him    one  of  his  dryly 
humorous    remarks    on    the  queer  aberrations  of 
the  religious  mind.     At  Twickenham  we  no  doubt 
tried  with  indifferent  success  to  draw  him  into  a 
talk  about  "  poor  little  rickety  Pope,"  as  he  calls 
him    in    our    chronicle.     A    spot    near    "  the    lazy 
Mole  "   took  him  back  to  its  once  famous  tenant, 
Abraham    Tucker,    whose    cheery    optimism — just 
because,  perhaps,  it  was  so  far  removed  from  his 
own   attitude   to   life — won   his   heart.     And   then 
there  was  the  churchyard  at  Stoke  Poges  ;  where, 
he  tells  us  in  our  chronicle,  he  was  relieved  to  find 
even  the  most  expansive  talker  among  us  refrain- 
ing from  quoting  the  famous  Elegy — conveniently 
inscribed  just  outside  the  entrance  gate  for  a  re- 
freshment of  dull  memories.     Among  less  familiar 
sights  which  our  ramblings  led  us  to  was  a  genuine 
old  inn,  the   Golden   Farmer's   Inn,  near  Bagshot, 
of  which   Swift   speaks.     In   these   searchings   for 
old    memorials    the    editor    of   the    "  Dictionary " 
would  now  and  then  peep  out,   as  when  he  took 
liis  flock  to  the  summit  of  Hindhead  to  gaze  on  a 
cross  which  tells  of  a  famous  murder. 


REFRESHMENTS  307 

Yet  the  routes  chalked  out  for  us  were  not 
wholly  determined  by  a  desire  for  edification.  Our 
chief  knew  the  carnal  needs  of  his  Tramps,  and  he 
found  it  often  a  knotty  problem  to  fix  upon  an 
inn  for  luncheon  reachable  somewhere  near  the 
right  hour.  The  meanest  tavern  would  suffice, 
provided  it  could  stow  us  all  away  in  the  parlour 
and  regale  us  with  the  homely  fare  of  bread,  cheese, 
and  beer.  Our  chief  introduced  a  note  of  severe 
ascetic  restraint  into  his  choice  of  an  inn.  He 
was,  I  am  sure,  always  put  out  when  the  humble 
*'  pub  "  could  not  be  found,  and  he  was  forced  to 
take  us  to  an  "  hotel,"  where  perhaps  a  hot  lunch 
was  going. 

There  were,  however,  exceptions  to  the  rule  of 
plain  living.  Friends  began  to  hear  of  our  pil- 
grimages, and  invitations  to  lunch  or  tea  soon 
grew  plentiful.  Some  of  these  offers  of  hospitality 
came  from  our  chief's  distinguished  friends,  such 
as  George  Meredith,  Charles  Darwin,  and  Frederic 
Harrison. 

When  on  the  march  our  pace  sufficed  to  keep 
us  isolated  from  the  outside  world.  We  may,  no 
doubt,  have  astonished,  and  provoked  quiet  remarks 
from,  some  of  the  slow-moving  churchgoers  whom 
we  passed.  But  I  can  only  recall  one  exchange 
of  words  with  other  pedestrians.  On  this  occasion 
some  of  us  were  actually  pulled  up  by  a  gentleman 
who  had  the  look  of  a  lay  preacher.  He  politely 
addressed  one  of  our  group,  a  mathematician  and 
logician,  with  the  words,  "  I  beg  your  pardon, 
sir,  but  are  you  saved  ?  "  To  which  bold  inquiry 
our  Tramp  replied  awkwardly,  "  G-God  bless  my 


308  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

soul,  I  believe  not."  This  frankness  encouraged 
the  evangelist  to  add,  "  Because,  sir,  if  you.  are 
not  saved,  you  will  not  go  to  heaven."  This  was 
too  much  for  our  logician,  who  at  once  made  an 
end  of  the  discussion  by  declaring  that  the  last 
remark  was  "  an  identical  proposition." 

How  much  conversation,  it  might  naturally  be 
asked,  went  on  among  ourselves  ?  It  has  recently 
been  suggested  that  a  vigorous  day's  walking  of 
some  twenty  to  twenty-five  miles  would  be  un- 
favourable to  much  discourse.^  Our  chronicler 
himself  points  out  that,  as  we  progressed,  speech 
was  apt  to  flag.  To  quote  his  humorous  way 
of  putting  it,  "  Many  a  glowing  apostrophe  and 
apposite  illustration  grows  humdrum  and  thread- 
bare as  the  journey  lengthens."  But  a  fair 
amount  of  talk  did  nevertheless  get  itself  done 
during  these  walks,  and  the  quantity  increased 
after  our  chief  had  reduced  his  standard  of  the 
average  leg  capacity.  Stephen  enjoyed  a  quiet, 
unhurried  talk  with  a  single  Tramp,"  and  one  of 
my  greatest  treats  in  these  walks  was  to  have 
him  alone  for  a  spell,  and  listen  to  his  slow  but 
ever  pregnant  utterances  about  men  and  events. 
Delightful  moments,  these  solitudes  a  deux,  whose 
d|ielight  was  rather  increased  than  diminished  by 
fearful  suspicion  that  they  were  stolen  blisses. 

We  were  an  odd,  heterogeneous  sort  of  company, 
hardly  more  than  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms, 
and  united  only  by  the  common  tie  of  our  chief's 
selection.  Our  talks  reflected  the  variety  of  our 
several  callings  and  habits  of  life.  We  had  almost 
I  See  "Walking  Essays,"  by  Hugh  Sidgwick. 


COMPOSITION   OF   THE  TRAMPS  309 

as  good  a  contingent  of  lawyers  as  the  House 
of  Commons ;  and  this  circumstance  ensured  a 
plentiful  dishing  up  of  memorable  repartees  and 
other  brilliant  utterances  from  the  Law  Courts, 
Scotch  as  well  as  English.  A  fair  number  followed 
our  chief's  occupation  of  scribbler.  And  being 
young,  we  did  not  neglect  the  opportvmity  of 
slanging  the  publishers — the  idea  of  the  Authors' 
Society  being  already  in  the  air.  We  would 
entertain  ourselves  with  the  pastime  of  finding 
out  which  of  them  had  the  worst  reputation 
among  us.  So  far  as  I  remember,  we  had  no 
professional  poets,  though  there  were  versifiers  who 
introduced  an  agreeable  lightness  into  our  dis- 
course. It  was  the  age  of  "  Limericks,"  and  I 
remember  one  impromptu  example  which  may 
perhaps  bear  quoting  even  to-day.  We  were  passing 
Ealing  Station  when  one  of  our  company — a  clever 
young  lawyer,  I  think — broke  into  lines  which 
ran  as  follows  : 

There  was  an  old  lady  of  Ealing, 

Who  said,  "  When  potatoes  want  peeling, 

To  ascribe  Nature's  laws  to  a  bountiful  cause 
Shows  a  lamentable  want  of  good  feeling." 

I  wish  I  could  recall  with  some  precision  how 
our  chief  behaved  when  the  frivolous  mood  took 
us.  I  seem  dimly  to  remember  a  half-inhibited 
laugh — a  kind  of  truncated  snort — which  would 
come  out  on  such  occasions,  expressing  at  once 
a  good-natured  toleration  of  our  boyish  frolics 
and  a  feeble  attempt  at  a  rebuke. 

Sometimes   our   chatting  would  be   silenced   by 


310  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

some  bit  of  sad  tidings.  So  it  happened  when 
our  chief  appeared  without  "  Rob,"  his  colhe,-  and 
we  learned  that  his  "  dear  old  friend,"  as  he  calls 
him  in  his  chronicle,  had  been  poisoned  in  a  London 
park.  It  was  a  very  gloomy  morning  when,  on 
arriving  at  Victoria  Station,  we  read  on  the 
bulletin  of  the  Observer  the  news  of  the  Phoenix 
Park  murders. 

An  occurrence  which  brought  us  an  intimate 
sense  of  loss  was  the  death  of  Charles  Darwin, 
A  visit  nov^^  and  again  to  his  house  at  Down  had 
been  one  of  the  major  rewards  of  our  tramping 
exertions.  It  was  a  delightful  experience  to  see 
him  and  our  chief  together.  Stephen's  affec- 
tionate reverence  for  the  great  evolutionist  was 
warmly  reciprocated,  and  I  experienced  some- 
thing akin  to  the  mixture  of  pride  and  awe  which 
one  feels  at  being  taken  into  the  confidences^  of 
a  pair  of  lovers.  We  spoke  of  the  death  of  our 
chief's  revered  teacher  in  low  tones.^  He  himself 
would  relate  to  us  touching  fragments  of  infor- 
mation about  Darwin  :  how,  for  example,  his  dog 
had  showed  all  the  signs  of  human  grief  on  the 
death  of  his  master.  A  humorous  incident  might 
come  out  too,  such  as  the  remark  a  privileged 
servant  of  the  family  made  to  Mrs.  Darwin  v/hen 
her  master  was  in  poor  health.  The  good  woman 
was  troubled  by  the  feeling  that  he  would  soon 
rally  if  only  he  would  '•  find  something  to  do," 
instead  of  standing  in  the  garden  so  much  and 
looking  at   the   flowers.^      Touching  the    proposal 

^  A  curious  diversity  in  point  of  view  is  illustrated  by  com- 
paring this  utterance  of  the  solicitous  servant  with  the  remark 


CHARLES   DARWIN  311 

to  bury  Darwin  in  Westminster  Abbey,  Stephen 
wrote  to  me  :  "It  would  seem  more  congenial 
to  bury  the  dear  old  man  in  that  quiet  little 
churchyard  close  to  the  house  in  which  he  lived 
and  worked  so  long." 

The  visits  to  Down  enlarged  and  deepened  the 
first  impression  of  Darwin  which  I  received  at 
the  Priory.  We  had  more  than  one  interesting 
little  talk  in  the  drawing-room.  Among  other 
striking  remarks  I  remember  his  once  saying  to 
me,  apropos  of  a  young  writer  who  was  just 
then  publishing  some  popular  studies  in  evolution, 
that  he  had  always  acted  upon  the  principle  that 
observing  and  theorizing  must  go  on  together  so 
closely  as  to  constitute  one  process. 

Stephen  gave  up  the  duties  of  chief  guide  in 
1891,  and  the  event  naturally  affected  the  keen- 
ness of  some  of  us  about  putting  in  an  appearance 
on  tramp-days.  My  sense  of  loss  was,  however, 
diminished  b}''  the  opportunities  he  now  gave  me 
of  taking  a  mild  tramp  with  him  alone.  The 
gradual  reduction  of  the  distance  in  the  day's 
walking  pathetically  marked  the  stages  in  our 
chief's  gradual  loss  of  his  splendid  bodily  powers. 
One  of  these  curtailed  peripatetics  ended  with 
Hampstead  and  lunch  at  my  house  ;  others  were 
directed  to  Meredith's  cottage  at  Box  Hill. 

The  editorial  association  and  the  fuller  and 
more  intimate  companionship  of  the  Tramps  were 

of  her  mistress  to  a  correspondent,  that  her  husband  is  a  very 
])ad  hand  at  doing  nothing  after  a  book  has  been  completed. 
See  Mrs.  Lichfield's  biography,  "  Emma  Darwin,"  vol.  ii. 
p.  187. 


312  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

the  two  chief  feeders  of  our  friendship  ;  and 
out  of  the  fellowship  thus  established  grew  other 
meetings  and  conjoint  work.  His  generous  help 
in  the  ticklish  business  of  the  petition  against  the 
punishment  dealt  out  to  Foote  not  only  assured 
me  of  his  stable  friendship,  but  deepened  my 
admiration  for  his  honesty  and  his  courage. 

Better  than  many  club  dinners  for  communing 
with  his  innermost  self  was  a  week  spent  in  his 
summer  residence  at  St.  Ives.  Stephen  and  I 
did  some  tramping  there  too,  and  I  can  still  recall 
how  the  recent  fall  of  a  politician  who  had  been 
his  friend  led  him  to  open  up  his  large  pitiful  heart 
to  me.  His  brilliant  nephew  and  fellow  Tramp 
"  J.  K.  S.,"  of  whom  he  was  particularly  fond, 
was  with  us  in  one  of  our  ramblings  along  the 
coast.  The  fury  of  an  Atlantic  storm  had  not 
subsided,  and  the  waves  roared  in  against  the 
rocks.  Nothing  daunted,  "  Jim  "  climbed  to  the 
top  of  a  rock  which  was  plentifully  washed  by 
the  breakers ;  and,  half  amused,  half  "angered,  his 
uncle  watched  the  sturdy  fellow  as  he  stood  firm 
as  the  rock  and  took  the  sousings. 

Despite  the  presence  of  some  dejecting  influences 
in  the  air,  this  visit  to  St.  Ives  was  one  of  the 
memorable  experiences  of  my  life.  The  bowling- 
green,  the  plunge  with  my  juniors  into  the  deep 
sea,  the  soothing  strain  of  music  that  was  some- 
times to  be  heard  after  breakfast  by  the  open 
drawing-room  window — these  and  kindred  enjoy- 
ments still  come  back  to  assure  me  that  the 
world  is  not  an  ugly  place  to  live  in.  James 
Russell  Lowell  was  staying  there  the  same  week, 


SWISS  MEMORIES  313 

and  I  came  in  for  a  singular  bit  of  good  fortune. 
Stephen  was  busy  with  his  "  Dictionary  "  in  the 
forenoon ;  so  Lowell,  learning  that  I  was  a  smoker, 
proposed  to  join  me  in  the  smoking-room.  This 
led  to  his  taking  down  from  the  bookcase  a  copy 
of  "  Tom  Sawyer,"  from  which  he  read  aloud, 
teaching  me  the  right  local  pronunciation  of 
the  words. 

Opportunities  of  a  more  restricted  fellowship 
were  offered  me  in  Stephen's  town  house.  After 
spending  a  holiday  in  Switzerland,  I  would  on  my 
return  call  and  report  to  him  any  interesting 
experiences.  He  was  most  sympathetic  when  I 
got  entangled  in  the  accident  on  the  Diavolezza 
Pass,  and  took  special  pains  to  assure  me  that 
I  had  done  the  one  thing  I  ought  to  have  done. 
I  called  upon  him  after  another  and  quite  agree- 
able Alpine  experience,  a  walk  over  the  Monte 
MoroPass  at  the  head  of  the  Saasthal  to  Macugnaga. 
As  I  mentioned  the  Hotel  Mattmark,  where  our 
party  passed  the  night,  I  saw  him  smile,  and  I 
guessed  the  reason  of  it.  To  save  him  trouble,  I 
instantly  told  him  that  the  amusing  instructions 
which  he  had  long  since  bequeathed  to  visitors 
in  the  Fremdenbuch  of  the  little  hotel  still  stood 
intact,  with  his  signature  not  far  from  that  of 
his  friend,  John  Tyndall.  The  bit  of  humorous 
advice,  the  recollection  of  which  had  revived  that 
smile,  read  thus  :  "  The  stranger  who  desires  to 
escape  the  smoke  in  this  room  is  advised  to  shelter 
himself  in  the  chimney." 

He  continued  to  show  his  old  interest  in  my 
work ;    and,    after  reading  my   "  Studies  of  Child- 


314  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

hood,"  he  sent  me  an  account  of  his  one  childish 
he — "  a  horrid,  hideous,  dehberate  he  which  I  could 
not  mention  even  now  !  I  cannot  imagine  why. 
...  But  it  was  base  cowardice— fear  of  punish- 
m.ent  or  rather  reproof." 

His  last  letters  to  me  were  increasingly  sad  from 
their  reference  to  his  health.  He  w^rote  me  after 
the  loss  of  his  wife  :  "  I  grow  more  lonely,  I  fear, 
as  the  days  go  on  and  my  infirmities,  deafness 
in  particular,  increase,  and  friends  drop  off." 
When  telling  me  of  a  projected  summer  holiday 
(on  Hindhea,d,  I  think),  he  added,  with  the  ghost 
of  a  smile,  "  I'm  getting  good  at  sitting."  Yet 
such   complaints  were  rare. 

Stephen  could  on  occasion  be  a  sturdy  stickler 
for  his  rights.  The  only  time  I  saw  him  wrath- 
ful was  when  he  considered  these  rights  to  be 
grossly  disputed.  We  were  going  to  call  upon 
Meredith,  and  stopped  to  lunch  at  an  hotel 
not  far  from  Flint  Cottage.  I  went  into  the 
dining-room  and  took  the  hotel  lunch,  while 
Stephen  remained  outside  to  consume  the  speci- 
ally prepared  invalid  refreshment  which  he  had 
brought  with  him.  When  he  had  finished  this 
he  joined  me  at  the  hotel  table.  A  waiter 
came  forward  to  ask  what  he  should  bring  him. 
On  being  informed  by  Stephen  that  he  had  already 
partaken  of  lunch,  this  official  proceeded  to  instruct 
him  that  it  was  not  permitted  to  sit  at  the  dining- 
room  table  ¥/itliout  ordering  refreshment.  Stephen 
instantly  rose  to  his  full  height,  and  exploding 
on  the  offender's  ear  a  shrapnel  of  vituperative 
language,  drove  him  in  sheer  terror  out  of  the  room. 


PERSONALITY  315 

But  to  those  who  really  knew  him — heart  as 
well  as  brain — Stephen  was  one  of  the  two  or 
three  men  whom  they  were  sure  of  loving.  Why 
they  loved  him  they  could  not  have  explained 
satisfactorily  to  the  psychological  analyst,  any 
more  than  Stephen  himself  could  have  satisfac- 
torily explained  his  love  for  Dr.  Johnson.  A 
personality  is  much  more  than  a  "  mechanical 
mixture  "  of  a  number  of  qualities  like  courage, 
endurance,  devotion  to  truth,  and  the  rest.  One 
thing  was  prominent  in  the  indissoluble  whole. 
There  lay  deeply  hidden  under  his  physical  and 
intellectual  strength  a  fund  of  tender  sympathy, 
which  we  valued  the  more  just  because  it  was 
an  organic  part  of  so  strong  a  man.  Nor  was  he 
always  careful  to  keep  this  tender  aspect  out  of 
sight.  When  George  Meredith  lost  his  wife  I 
sounded  Stephen  as  to  the  desirability  of  send- 
ing him  a  line  of  condolence  ;  in  reply  to  which 
he  wrote :  "  My  own  experience  tells  me  that 
intrusions  of  that  kind  are  not  resented." 

Stephen's  writings  reflect  his  temperament  and 
character  in  a  peculiar  way.  His  criticism  has 
no  doubt  a  sharp  logical  edge  :  he  loved  a 
dialectic  combat  quite  as  much  as  a  Cornish 
wrestling  match.  Yet,  ardent  servant  of  truth 
though  he  was,  his  critical  work  is  deeply  tinged 
with  a  love  of  humanity  in  its  infinite  variety  of 
shades  of  character.  And,  what  is  perhaps  still 
more  noteworthy,  this  warm  humanity  coexisted 
with  a  passionate  love  for  his  bleak  and  solitary 
Alpine  "  Playground."  ^ 

I  See    some    appreciations   of    Stephen   by    Meredith    and 
D.  W.  F.  in  The  Author  of  April  1904. 


CHAPTER     XIX 

WILLIAM    JAMES 

William  James  was  a  friend  to  whom  I  was 
drawn  rather  by  similarity  of  age  and  of  scientific 
pursuits  than  by  any  close  personal  association. 
I  never  saw  him  outside  London ;  and,  as  he 
wrote  to  me  once,  "  Vacation  at  the  shore  or  in 
the  mountains  is  the  only  condition  of  true  human 
intercourse."  Yet  I  managed  to  see  a  good  bit 
of  him  in  a  scrappy  way,  and  for  many  years  we 
kept  up  an  irregular  exchange  of  ideas  and  senti- 
ments by  letter-writing.  I  first  heard  of  him 
through  Croom  Robertson  and  the  contributions 
he  was  making  to  Mind  ;  among  which  a  doughty 
attack  on  Hegel  took  my  fancy.  In  1882  he  was 
in  London  for  some  time,  and  I  made  his  personal 
acquaintance  at  the  meetings  of  "  The  Scratch 
Eight,"  ^  his  admission  to  which  he  gratefully 
recalled  in  a  letter  to  me  dated  twenty-six  years 
later.  He  was,  if  I  remember  aright,  for  the 
most  part  a  silent  listener  to  our  discussions. 

Although   we   were   near   one   another   in   age,  I 

had  the  start  of  him  in  book-making,  and  he  kept 

an    eye,    at    once    brotherly    and    critical,    on    my 

publications.     He  spoke  well  of  the  "  Outlines  of 

I  Cf.  above,  p.  221. 

316 


WILLIAM    JAMES. 


To  face  p.  316. 


PRINCIPLES   OF   PSYCHOLOGY  317 

Psychology,"   and  told   me  he  was   using  it  as   a 
textbook    for    his    class.     But    my    endeavour    in 
this  and  in  later  textbooks  to  produce  a  view    of 
psychology  which  should  give  prominence  to  what 
I   considered   had   been   pretty   firmly    established 
in  our  rather  shapeless  science  made  him  impatient. 
He  thought  I  was  too  much  concerned  to  be  im- 
partial ;    he  reminded  me  that  "  a  dash  of  polemic 
virus  is  often  very  useful  to  drive  discriminations 
home";  and  later  he  urged,  apropos  of  my  work 
"  The   Human   Mind  " — for   which,  by  the  by,   he 
so  far  stood  sponsor  as  to  give  it  a  name — that 
I  was   too   open-minded,  and   that    "  if  you   were 
more  polemic,  more  careless  of  including  all  truth, 
there  would  be  more  ring  in  your  accents,  and  you 
would  catch  your  readers  more."     I  saw  his  point, 
and   understood    it   still   better   when   he   brought 
out  his   own   textbooks.      But   I  knew  there  was 
something  to  be  said  on  my  side  too.     He  pub- 
lished   his    "  Principles    of    Psychology  "    a    year 
before  "  The  Human  Mind  "  appeared,  and  I  gave 
it  a  warm  commendation  in  the  pages  of  Mind. 
I   was   full   of  admiration   for   his   happy   way   of 
fusing  the  imaginative  Avith  the   speculative,   and 
for  the  wealth  and  brilliance  of  his  original  sug- 
gestions.    I    predicted    of   it   that    it    would    long 
survive  our  more   laboured  textbooks,   and  James 
was   "  exceedingly  pleased  "   with   what  he  called 
my    "  munificently    kind    notice."     My    principal 
adverse  criticism  of  the  book  was  that  the  chapters 
did   not   hang   together,    and   that   the   order   sug- 
gested a  collection  of  separate  articles  rather  than 
an    organic    treatise.     On  this    he    wrote :    "  You 


818  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

and  all  my  critics  are  wrong  about  the  compo- 
sition of  the  work.  The  chapters  (all  but  one) 
were  originally  written  for  the  book,  and  separately 
published  as  an  afterthought." 

James  was  deeply  moved  by  the  sufferings  of 
our  friend  Croom  Robertson.  After  years  of 
acute  pain,  against  which  he  valiantly  battled, 
maintaining  not  only  his  lecturing  work  but 
his  heavy  duties  as  editor,  he  lost  his  great 
sustainer,  his  wife,  who  died  after  suffering  from 
an  incurable  malady.  The  loss  led  him  at 
once  to  resign  his  professorship.  "  Poor  G.  C.R. !  " 
James  wrote  to  me  on  hearing  of  his  retirement. 
"  Was  there  ever  such  a  case  of  a  strong  man 
grappling  with  adversity  !  He  will  have  a  monu- 
ment in  the  hearts  of  his  friends,  if  nowhere  else." 
And  later,  on  receiving  the  news  of  Robertson's 
death  he  wrote  me  (from  Florence)  :  "  Considering 
what  the  lamentations  of  some  men  would  have 
been,  the  utter  unquerulousness  of  Robertson  has 
been  simply  magnificent.  .  .  .  His  monument  in 
the  sixteen  volumes  of  Mind  is,  after  all,  one 
to  be  satisfied  with.     God  keep  him  !  " 

I  had  hoped  to  see  him  in  London  at  the  Psycho- 
logical Congress  (1892)  ;  but  though  he  had  pro- 
mised to  come  and  to  read  a  paper,  he  wrote  early 
in  the  year  to  say  that  he  was  in  poor  health  and 
would  not  be  able  to  be  present  or  to  send  a  paper. 
He  added  that  he  would  have  to  go  abroad  that 
summer,  with  his  wife  and  babes,  "  to  spend  my 
'  sabbatical  year  '  on  half- pay  :  blessed  privilege  ! "  ^ 

'  I  suppose  that  his  stay  in  London  in  1882  was  also  due  to 
some  similar  provision  by  the  American  academic  authorities. 


POLITICAL   S\T\IPATHIES  319 

From  now  on  I  was  less  in  touch  with  him. 
His  health  appears  to  have  remained  for  some 
time   very   uneertain.     He   had   already   (in   1892) 

told  me  of  a  severe  attack  of  brain-fag :    "  d d 

neurasthenic  constitution — thank  Heaven  for  that 
word  '  neurasthenic  ' ;  it  is  almost  as  good  as  '  epi- 
phenomenon.'  "  Later  he  suffered  from  heart 
trouble,  brought  on,  I  was  told,  by  excessive 
exertion  in  the  Rockies. 

After  the  early  nineties  his  letters  became  less 
frequent.  This  was  no  doubt  due  in  part  to  the 
need  of  husbanding  his  writing  powers.  But  I 
suspect  that  he  was  alive  to  the  fact  of  my  being 
less  sympathetically  interested  in  the  new  lines 
of  his  work  as  foreshadowed  in  the  little  volume 
"  The  Will  to  Beheve."  Also  the  new  social 
demands  that  came  on  the  heels  of  a  growing 
popularity  left  him,  when  in  England,  but  little 
time  to  look  up  old  friends.  But,  en  revanche^ 
my  uncompromising  disapproval  of  the  Boer  War, 
which  I  fear  must  have  loosened  more  than  one 
tie  of  friendship,  brought  me  closer  to  James. 
I  saw  him  (I  think  for  the  last  time)  soon  after 
the  outbreak  of  the  war,  when  I  remember  his 
telling  me  that  "  a  wave  of  Jingoism  "  was  passing 
round  the  world.  In  1900  he  wrote  from  Bad 
Nauheim  (where  he  was  undergoing  treatment 
for  his  cardiac  trouble)  urging  me  to  write  on 
"  the  psychology  of  man  as  beast  of  prey."  He 
was  strongly  opposed  to  the  new  Imperialism  in 
America,  and  protested  against  it  in  a  lecture  of 
which  he  sent  me  a  printed  copy.  He  wrote  to 
me  from  Rome  (in  March  1901)  :    "  I  see  you  take 


320  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

the  war  still  very  much  to  heart,  and  I  myself 
think  that  the  blundering  way  in  which  the 
Colonial  Office  drove  the  Dutchmen  into  it,  with 
no  conception  whatever  of  the  psychological  situ- 
ation, is  only  outdone  by  our  still  more  anti- 
psychological  blundering  in  the  Philippines.  Both 
countries  have  lost  their  moral  prestige — we  far 
more  completely  tban  you,  because  for  our  conduct 
there  is  literally  no  excuse  to  be  made  except 
absolute  stupidity,  whilst  you  can  make  out  a 
very  fair  case,  as  such  cases  go." 

As  his  references  to  Croom  Robertson  show,  he 
had  a  genuine  feeling  of  piety  for  those  whose 
labours  death  had  ended.  In  the  same  letter 
from  Rome  he  writes  :  "  Yes  !  H.  Sidgwick  is  a 
sad  loss,  with  all  his  remaining  philosophic  wisdom 
unwritten.  I  feel  greatly  F.  W.  H.  Myers's  loss 
also.  He  suffered  terribly  with  suffocation,  but 
bore  it  stunningly  well.  He  died  in  this  very 
hotel."  He  goes  on  to  say  he  means  to  write 
"  a  little  tribute  to  his  (Myers's)  service  to  psycho- 
logy," which  he  hopes  may  not  appear  exaggerated 
to  me. 

I  read  between  the  lines  of  this  letter  that  he 
was  not  sure  of  my  old  sympathy  following  him 
into  the  new  directions  of  his  work.  His  psycho- 
logical writings,  splendid  as  they  were,  had  seemed 
to  me  to  show  a  rather  dangerous  fondness 
for  concentrating  upon  certain  sides  of  a  subject 
which  specially  appealed  to  him  and  lent 
themselves  to  his  strong  and  vivid  mode  of 
presentment.  And  I  thought  I  saw  in  this  habit 
a  harbinger  of  his  manner  of  laying  on  the  colour 


PRAGMATISM  321 

here  and  blotting  out  there  when  he  passed  from 
psychology  to  metaphysic — a  provmce  which  he 
told  me  in  a  letter  (dated  1903)  is  "  the  only  thing 
that  schmecJit  (appetises)  at  present."  His  little 
volume  on  "  The  Will  to  Believe,"  and  the  "  Prafy- 
m.atism  "  which  grew  out  of  it,  brought  him,  no 
doubt,  a  larger  audience.  It  is  too  soon,  even 
after  the  many  sheets  which  have  been  devoted 
to  the  subject  in  Mind  and  elsewhere,  to  form  a 
final  judgment  upon  the  value  of  this  later  work. 
I  have  always  been  among  those  who  felt  that 
in  leaving  the  psychological  field  Jam^eswas  part- 
ing from  his  proper  subject  for  one  in  which  he 
was  less  at  home,  and  for  which  his  early  training 
had  less  fully  equipped  him. 

Our  fraternal  intercourse  ended  then  with  a 
certain  estrangement  of  our  speculative  intellects. 
But  our  hearts  clung  to  one  another  to  the  end. 
We  made  a  series  of  vain  attempts  to  meet  once 
more.  Now  it  w^as  7ny  health  that  obstructed 
our  desire,  as  in  1905,  when,  though  in  Italy,  I 
was  not  well  enough  to  join  him  at  the  Psycho- 
logical Congress  in  Rome;  now  on  his  side  there 
came  from  Oxford,  from  Cambridge,  and  from 
Rye  the  regretful  apology  "  no  time."  The  fates 
were  against  us.  One  day  I  received  a  telegram 
from  him,  sent  from  a  London  hotel,  inviting  me 
to  lunch  with  him  the  next  day  ;  and  it  happened 
that  I,  one  of  the  most  stay-at-home  of  people, 
had  engaged  myself  on  that  very  day  to  an  old 
Hampstead  friend.  Later,  when  I  was  in  Sussex, 
I  heard  of  his  being  at  Rye,  and  I  wrote  proposing 
to  bring  a  great  admirer  of  his  to  call  upon  him  ; 

22 


322  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

and  this  letter,  he  later  informed  me,  he  never 
received.  Thus  vainly  did  we  grope  after  one 
another  in  the  mists.  All  the  same,  warm  words 
continued  to  flutter  over  to  me  from  across  the 
Atlantic  up  to  the  last  years,  and  the  words  grew 
still  warmer  with  a  brother's  heart-blood  when  he 
knew  that  suffering  had  come  to  stay  in  my  home. 


CHAPTER    XX 

GEORGE    MEREDITH 

My  meeting  with  Meredith,  at  John  Morley's  house, 
did  not  at  first  lead  to  a  close  acquaintance. 
This  came  some  years  later,  and  grew  out 
of  my  enrolment  in  the  honourable  body  of 
Sunday  Tramps.  The  mutual  admiration  of 
Meredith  and  our  chief,  Leslie  Stephen,  led  to 
our  frequently  making  Box  Hill  the  goal  of  our 
walk.  Flint  Cottage  was  ill- designed  for  a  large 
party  of  pedestrians,  and  when  there  was  an 
invitation  from  Meredith,  Stephen  would  arrange 
to  limit  the  number  of  visitors,  more  particularly 
for  the  dinner,  which  was  hospitably  added  to 
the  afternoon  tea.  Meredith  might  join  us  for 
the  latter  part  of  the  walk,  accompanied  by  his 
dachshund  "  Bruno,"— whom  he  would  piteously 
try  to  call  off  from  the  rabbit-holes  which  refused 
to  give  up  their  fluffy  possessors, — and  sometimes 
by  one  or  both  of  his  children,  or  by  a  neighbour, 
like  one  of  the  Maxse  famih^  The  young  daughter 
of  the  house  soon  got  used  to  our  mud- caked  boots, 
and  she  showed  an  excellent  contrivance  in  arrang- 
ing for  the  requisite  number  of  Tramps  in  need  of 
ablutions. 

323 


324  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

As  his  readers  know,  Meredith  had  a  fine  appre- 
ciation of  the  beauties  of  his  Surrey  home";  and 
not  an  infrequent  part  of  his  entertainment  of  the 
Tramps  was  a  stroll  after  tea  to  see  some  of  his 
favourite  trees,  a  veteran  yew,  perhaps,  or  a  maple 
all  ablaze  with  the  October  crimson. 

At  the  dinner-table  our  charming  hostess  looked 
diligently  after  our  bodily  wants,  which  other- 
wise might  have  had  scant  justice  done  them  by 
a  husband  apt  to  be  preoccupied  with  some 
piquant  topic  of  discussion.  She  was  ably  sup- 
ported by  her  young  daughter,  who,  I  remember, 
would  delight  in  loading  the  dessert  plate  of  some 
lucky  neighbour  with  sweetmeats  and  other 
dainties.  The  light  yet  toothsome  dishes  and  the 
excellent  French  wines — which  I  at  least  would 
not  have  exchanged  for  Dr.  Middleton's  port,  so 
eloquently  extolled  in  "  The  Egoist  " — were  ad- 
mirably adapted  to  a  band  of  London  scribblers 
endowed  with  but  moderate  powers  of  digestion. 

Along  with  the  refinement  of  these  Sunday 
entertainments  there  would  peep  out  now  and 
again  a  barely  discernible  touch  of  the  Bohemian, 
just  enough  to  remind  us  that  Ave  were  frequenters 
of  the  road.  We  were  put  still  more  at  our  ease 
when,  after  the  repast,  we  stepped  over  to  the 
chalet,  Meredith's  sanctum,  and  gave  ourselves 
up  to  cigars  and  a  freer  sort  of  talk.  The  books 
in  paper  covers  which  filled  the  shelves  added  to 
the  impression  of  French  daintiness. 

As  my  first  sight  of  him  at  Morley's  house 
on  the  Hog's  Back  had  assured  me,  Meredith  was 
a   great   talker.     He   was    indeed   a   brilliant   and 


Fredk.  HoUyer 


GEORGE  MEREDITH. 


[To  face  p.  324 


MEREDITH'S   TALK  325 

indefatigable  leader  of  talk,  and  never  long  abdi- 
cated his  office  even  when  other  good  talkers  were 
present.  These  others  seemed  to  have  as  their 
chief  part  in  the  conversation  to  supply  new 
starting-points,  or  new  aspects  of  a  subject  when 
it  began  to  look  worn. 

His  utterances  were  spontaneous  and  flowed  with 
a  wonderful  continuity.  It  was  the  rarest  thing  to 
catch  him  hesitating  for  a  word.  The  maintenance 
of  such  a  smooth  current  of  speech  implied,  in 
his  case,  a  tense  form  of  intellectual  concentration. 
His  hearers  were  for  the  most  part  aware  of  this, 
and  wisely  made  no  attempt  to  interrupt  the  flow 
of  ideas.  If  one  of  the  unwary  did  venture  on 
a  word,  Meredith  had  an  effective  way  of  chastising 
the  hardihood.  I  remember  with  what  a  terribly 
ironical  "  Madame  !  "  he  once  met  a  lady's  in- 
terruption, accompanying  the  ejaculation  with 
one  of  his  extra-ceremonious  bows. 

Yet,  impatient  as  he  was  of  interruption  when 
primed  for  discourse,  he  sho^ved,  I  should  say, 
less  insistence  upon  a  monopoly  of  talk  than  Mr. 
Gladstone  is  said  to  have  done.  My  impression 
is  that  in  our  Tramp-gatherings  Meredith  would 
now  and  again  graciously  give,  not  only  our  chief, 
but  even  less  important  members  of  the  fraternity 
a  chance  to  join  in  the  talk. 

A  notable  feature  of  his  talk  was  the  range  of 
topic  covered.  As  his  novels,  and  still  more 
clearly  his  letters,  show  us,  he  could  discourse 
seriously  enough  when  he  regarded  his  subject  as 
an  important  one.  Though  apt  to  be  described 
as    a    purely    imaginative    writer,    with    a    strong 


326  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

leaning  to  the  comic,  he  was  a  shrewd  observer  of 
men,  and  his  mind  was  stored  with  the  genuine 
wisdom  of  hfe.  He  kept,  too,  in  close  touch 
with  the  larger  subjects  of  the  hour,  such  as  the 
maintenance  of  the  Briton's  physique  and  the 
aspirations  of  women  to  a  higher  intellectual  status. 
It  remains  true,  however,  that  the  most  brilliant, 
if  not  also  the  most  stimulating,  passages  in  his 
talk  were  expressions  of  the  comic  spirit,  ranging 
from  the  playful  antics  of  a  boyish  "  larkishness  " 
up  to  the  mature  and  artfully  adjusted  attack 
of  wit  and  irony.  Extravagance  of  statement, 
caricature,  a  touch  now  and  again  of  Rabelaisian 
eagerness  to  leap  the  barriers  of  conventional  pro- 
priety— these  were  some  of  the  more  salient 
features  of  his  utterance.  He  was  at  his  best 
when  he  had  a  story  to  narrate  which,  though 
in  part  vero,  he  ^vas  free  to  transform  into  a 
deliciously  astounding  hen  trovato.  The  story  of 
the  first  experiment  of  a  noiweau  riche  in  enter- 
taining at  dinner  illustrated  his  mastery  of 
the  cumulative  art  in  this  direction.  I  remember 
also  the  comic  history  of  another  dinner  and  its 
consequences  which  he  once  recited  at  Flint 
Cottage.  It  was  a  Meredithian  version  of  a  story 
which  just  then  was  running  the  round.  It  told 
of  how  an  ambitious  gentleman,  known  as  yet 
only  to  other  walks  than  that  of  letters,  was  seized 
with  the  aspiration  of  entering  this  domain.  His 
ambition  was  matched  by  brilliant  inventive- 
ness— ^the  idea  of  securing  the  editorship  of  a  well- 
known  journal  by  playing  upon  another  sort  of 
ambition  of  which  he  knew  the  publisher  of  the 


MEREDITH'S   TALK  327 

journal  to  be  the  subject  :  he  arranged  a  dinner 
at  which  the  pubhsher  was  invited  to  meet  a 
marquis  and  other  high  personages.  This  piece 
of  ingenuity  won  all  the  success  it  deserved, 
the  publisher  remarking  to  his  host,  as  they 
entered  the  drawing-room,  "  Oh,  by  the  by, 
it's  all  right  about  the  Review.  The  editor- 
ship is  for  you."  Meredith's  account  of  this 
little  comedy  was  embroidered  by  some  character-^ 
istic  touches;  as  when  the  non-appearance  of  the 
marquis  at  the  dinner  party  was  set  down  to  a  fit 
of  gout,  and  when  the  publisher  was  described 
as  wanting  for  the  editorial  chair  "  none  of  your 
literary  recluses,  but  a  man  of  the  world  who 
hobnobs  with  lords,"  etc. 

These  delightful  bits  of  conversational  extrava- 
ganza were  started  in  various  ways.  Now  it 
was  the  remark  of  a  guest  which  opened  up  a 
tempting  line  of  caricature;  at  another  time  it 
was  a  bit  of  recent  newspaper  gossip  which  pricked 
him  on  to  the  chase  of  some  glorious  absurdity. 

When  the  comic  mood  was  well  set,  Meredith's 
hearers  might  now  and  again  observe  him  as  he 
glimpsed  the  crest  of  a  new  billow  of  mirth 
approaching.  One  could  watch  the  play  of  the 
mouth,  the  underlip  lowered  and  the  tip  of  the 
tongue  exposed  for  a  second,  as  some  new  aspect 
of  his  comic  quarry  disclosed  itself.  Charles 
Lamb  exactly  describes  this  momentary  intrusion 
of  the  comic  narrator  into  the  jest  itself  when  he 
writes :  "  We  love  to  see  a  wag  taste  his  own  joke 
to  his  party  :  to  watch  a  quick  or  a  merry  conceit 
flickering  upon  the  lips  some  seconds  before  the 


328  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

tongue  is  delivered  of  it."  ^  Meredith  would 
sometimes  go  further,  and  join  in  the  laughter-  he 
was  provoking  ;  yet  only  so  as  to  secure  a  moment's 
relief  from  the  intellectual  strain. 

The  appearance  of  Meredith  during  these  enter- 
taining talks  had  a  distinction  which  harmonized 
well  with  that  of  the  brilliant  intellectual  effort. 
The  finely  moulded  head,  somxCtimes  described  as 
Greek,   reminders   of  which   I   have   met   with   in 
the    museums    of   Rome,    was    in    itself   arresting, 
whether  fully  exposed  within  doors  or  half  hidden 
out    of   doors    by    a    sort    of    deer-stalker's   cap ; 
and  it   acquired  a  new   dignity  when    the   talker 
graciously  leaned  forward  as  if  to  mark  a  special 
intimacy    of     accost.      The     bright,     truth-loving 
eyes     doubled     the    hold    of    his    speech ;     while 
the  voice,   always   mellow   and   finely   modulated, 
riveted  the  attention  by   a  musical  link.     Among 
other  striking  features  in  his  appearance  w^re  the 
easy  yet  perfectly  fitting  brownish-grey  suit  which 
set  off  the  ruddy  tints  of  cheek  and  neck-tie,  and 
the    easy    and    gracious    movements,    which    had 
nothing     of    the     Frenchman's     quick,     energetic 
gestures.     In   the   earlier    years    of   our   acquaint- 
ance    he     never     seemed     to     tire     of      talking ; 
on    a    visit    I    paid    him    in    1890    he    kept    the 
ball    going   with     only    a    few    short    pauses    for 
two  or  three  hours,  one  half  of   the    time   sitting 
in  the  garden  and  the  other  climbing  the  Hill. 

The  range  of  subject  traversed  by  him  in  these 
causeries  was  remarkable.     At  this  same  meeting 
in  the  nineties  he  touched  among  other  matters 
?    "Essays  of  Elia." 


NATIONALITY  329 

the  question  of  his  race.  He  was  a  Celt,  he  said, 
and  added  that  his  Celtic  blood  doomed  him  to 
be  an  alien  among  English  people.  The  critics 
found  him  obscure,  and  he  hit  off  a  clever  little 
paraphrase  of  the  charges  of  obscurity  hurled 
against  him.  I  ventured  to  suggest  that  he  was 
gcttnig  more  widely  appreciated,  and  told  him 
of  quite  a  little  raid  that  was  now  being  made 
upon  his  books  at  our  Hampstead  Subscription 
Library.  But  he  was  not  to  be  comforted  by  this 
sort  of  chaff.  Immediately  upon  the  utterance  ot 
this  gloomy  personal  Jeremiad  he  flew  off  to  the 
subject  of  England's  condition,  a  matter  about 
which  he  was  deeply  concerned.  Our  people, 
he  said,  had  no  pure  blood.  We  had  no  critics. 
V/e  were  a  third-  or  fourth-rate  nation  accidentally 
put  at  the  head.  The  Germans  were  "  foul 
blooded,"  whereas  the  French  had  "  the  purity  of 
blood."  The  rapidity  of  transition  from  grave 
to  gay  was  particularly  marked  on  this  occasion. 
Apropos  of  women,  he  seemed  to  think  it  a  fine 
thing  that  they  were  getting  access  to  the  pro- 
fessions. With  a  touch  of  the  serio-comic,  I  fancy, 
he  recommended  the  pulpit  as  their  especial  sphere, 
and  backed  his  plea  by  reciting  a  gruesome  story 
of  the  way  in  which  a  vv^orldly  rector  had  met 
the  request  of  a  lady  that  he  would  go  to  see  a 
poor  girl  on  her  death-bed.  Loyal  admirer  as 
he  was  of  woman,  he  could  not  spare  her  from 
his  store  of  useful  targets  for  his  wit ;  and  I  re- 
member a  particularly  racy  story  which  he  told 
us  about  a  learned  lady  who,  "  in  spite  of  a 
terrifying  hypertrophy  of  jaw,  thought  it  necessary 


330  MY   LIFE   AND  FRIENDS 

to  state  that  she  despised  the  frivoHties  of  love- 
making."  His  way  of  treating  women  in  these 
talks  illustrated  that  large  and  stereoscopic  vision 
of  her  with  which  his  books  have  made  us 
familiar.  He  fully  complied  with  Schiller's  ex- 
hortation, "  Ehret  die  Frauen  "  ;  and  yet  respect 
never  blinded  him  to  those  fundamental  limita- 
tions, moral  as  well  as  physical,  which  he  brought 
out  in  dealing  with  Diana  of  the  Crossways  and 
other  of  his  heroines. 

This  memorable  visit  was  completed  by  a  stroll 
to  the  top  of  Box  Hill  at  the  moment  when  the 
declining  sun  was  hiding  itself  behind  wisps  of 
white  mists.  The  sight  brought  out  the  poet — 
a  rare  revelation  during  these  miscellaneous 
gatherings.  The  sun  became  for  his  imagination 
"  A  warrior  throwing  his  white  cloak  about  him." 

By  this  time  he  had  ceased  to  be  what  he  de- 
scribed as  "  the  happy  walker  "  of  the  seventies 
and  eighties.  It  was  at  the  visit  ^  of  1890 — or 
one  near  this  date— that  I  became  aware  of  his 
v/eakness.  As  he  moved  awkwardly  down  the 
steep  grassy  slope  of  the  Hill,  I  instinctively 
stretched  out  my  hand  to  help  him.  He  gently 
but  firmly  put  awa,y  the  proffered  aid.  Later  on, 
at  the  Cottage,  I  made  another  attempt  to  assist 
him  as  he  lifted  himself  out  of  a  low  chair,  and 
again  the  offer  was  declined.  Then,  on  a  still  later 
occasion,  when  Stephen  and  I  were  lunching  with 
him,  he  made  a  sign  to  me  as  Stephen  was  leaving 
the  drawing-room,  and  invited  me  to  lend  him 
my  arm.  Lie  had  remembered,  and  was  far  from 
bearing  me  any  ill-will. 


DECLINING   YEARS  331 

It  was  during  these  declining  years,  when  tramp- 
ing together  was  no  longer  possible,  that  I  grew 
more  intimate  with  Meredith.  Either  alone  or 
with  some  friend  like  Leslie  Stephen,  I  would 
arrange  to  call  upon  him  towards  the  tea-hour. 
Imprisoned  though  he  was  in  his  chair,  the  limpid 
stream  of  his  talk  retained  something  of  its  old 
fullness  and  fine  flavour.  An  iteration  now 
and  then  of  a  bit  of  persiflage,  or  of  a  more  serious 
diatribe  against  some  pet  aversion  of  the  hour, 
did,  no  doubt,  hint  at  the  approach  of  an  early 
stage  of  the  senile  enfeeblement  of  memory.  But 
far  more  noticeable  was  the  amount  of  freshness 
and  vigour  of  mind  still  conserved. 

That  for  me,  at  any  rate,  the  old  fascination 
of  his  talk  was  still  a  potent  force  was  shown  by 
the  fact  that,  though  highly  sensitive  to  the  strain 
of  vocal  expenditure,  I  was  only  too  glad  to  en- 
counter Meredith's  deafness,  unaided  though  the 
exercise  was  by  the  aural  tube  which  made 
talking  with  Leslie  Stephen  in  his  last  years 
so  easy. 

These  later  outpourings  of  wisdom  and  jocosity 
combined  had  a  chastened  sound.  The  laughter 
grew  less  mordant,  more  genial  and  playful.^ 
The  finer  sort  of  intellectual  thrust  was,  I  think, 
less  frequently  brought  off.  The  attacks  on  what 
he  particularly  disliked  or  feared  in  the  tendencies 
of  the  hour  were  apt  to  grow  sadder  and  more 
plaintive.     Yet   any  loss   of  the   older  power  and 

I  How  rich  a  strain  of  playful  mirth  he  possessed  is  shown 
in  his  letters  to  his  three  granddaughters.  See  "Letters," 
pp.  555-6^  591-2,  and  595. 


332  MY  LIFE  AND   FRIENDS 

brilliance  of  expression  was  made  good  for  me 
by  the  fuller  revelation  of  his  warm  and  deep 
hmiianity  ;  and  whatever  changes  may  have  been 
noticeable,  there  was  still  a  quite  remarkable 
output  of  original  and  striking  comment. 

Our  last  meeting  has  left  on  my  mind  an  un- 
usually vivid  impression.  It  was  the  afternoon 
of  an  October  day  (1908),  and  Meredith  sat 
in  the  little  drawing-room  with  a  shawl  over  his 
knees.  He  had  changed  notably  of  late  :  the  hair, 
reduced  to  a  few  noble  wisps,  reminded  me  again 
of  Vatican  busts.  A  nurse  sat  behind,  ready  to 
render  help  when  needed.  Besides  myself,  there 
were  present  Meredith's  daughter  and  my  son. 
Looking  out  of  the  window  one  caught  sight  of 
a  donkey  quietly  grazing — the  trusty  creature  that 
drew  the  novelist  in  his  chair.  When  tea  was 
served,  Meredith  declined  milk,  taking  the  beverage 
a  la  Russe  with  a  slice  of  lemon.  But  as  if  to 
ridicule  the  idea  of  his  being  a  confirmed  invalid, 
he  bravely  smoked  a  small  cigar.  For  almost 
the  first  time  I  heard  him  refer  to  his  bodily  ail- 
ments. He  now  went  to  bed,  he  told  me,  at  ten 
o'clock  in  order  to  spare  his  eyes.  He  talked  away, 
according  to  his  old  wont,  of  things  serious  and 
amusing.  He  touched  once  more  on  his  bete  noire 
the  priest,  and  on  the  frail  human  way  of  clinging 
to  the  idea  of  a  future  life,  of  which  he  said  the 
cleric  made  capital.  Apropos  of  the  priest,  he 
referred  in  a  half-despairing  tone  to  a  rumour 
that  J.  S.  Mill,  when  lying  on  his  death-bed  at 
Avignon,  had  sent  for  one.  He  told  us  that  he 
had  let  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  know  his  dissatisfaction 


FUTURE   OF   ENGLAND  333 

with  the  later  scientific  gropings  after  evidences 
of  a  future  hfe.  A  soupQon  of  the  prochvity  of 
age  to  praise  the  past  appeared  in  some  remarks 
on  pubhc  affairs.  Bright  and  hopeful  as  was  his 
normal  outlook  on  England's  future,  he  was  at 
this  stage  haunted  by  fears.  He  said  that  both 
Germany  and  America  were  shooting  ahead  of 
us,  and  that  the  Germans  would  be  in  England 
in  twenty  years.  Apropos  of  military  capacity,  he 
remarked  that  the  German  had  obstinacy,  the 
Frenchman  elan ;  that  the  English  soldier  used 
to  combine  both,  but  had  now  lost  the  old  qualities. 
Nor  did  Lord  Haldane's  Territorial  scheme  seem 
to  him  to  offer  an  escape  from  the  danger  of  the 
situation.  These  forebodings  were  evidently  the 
result  of  his  own  reading  and  thinking.  How 
eagerly  he  scanned  Europe's  political  sky  was 
suggested  by  the  appearance  close  to  his  chair  of 
foreign  journals  like  the  Debats,  of  which,  among 
other  journals,  he  told  us,  he  was  a  great  devourer. 
The  German  and  the  Spanish  dictionary  which  I 
spied  also  lying  on  an  adjacent  bookstand  may 
have  been  used  for  the  gathering  of  political  as 
well  as  literary  information. 

The  tone  of  elegiac  regret,  so  foreign  to  our 
Meredith  of  earlier  days,  was  heard  in  the  plaint 
that  the  old  big  red  maples  had  disappeared  from 
Box  Hill,  only  yellow  ones  being  now  left.  Yet 
instantly  after  uttering  this  doleful  note,  as  if  to 
repossess  himself  of  his  hopeful  normal  self,  he 
began  to  descant  on  the  beauty  of  the  Box  Hill 
beeches  in  springtime,  when  golden  light  streams 
through  their  leaves. 


334  MY  LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

Toward  the  end,  our  happy  interview  w^as 
threatened  with  an  unpleasant  contretemps."  A 
young  man  appeared  at  the  gate  of  the  Cottage, 
and  walked  up  towards  the  door.  Meredith  had 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  figure,  and  I  saw  that 
he  was  perturbed.  But  on  nurse's  inquiring,  we 
learned,  to  our  relief,  that  the  caller,  a  young 
Welshman,  had  merely  come  to  leave  a  card 
by  way  of  expressing  his  admiration  for  our 
novelist  and  poet. 

I  think  ]\Ieredith  had  felt  during  this  visit  that 
he  was  not  doing  justice  to  himself.  In  any  case, 
towards  the  end  of  our  chat,  he  made  a  splendid 
effort  to  strike  once  more  the  joyous,  and  even 
the  rollicking  note.  His  daughter  told  him  of 
some  friends  who  were  going  to  Biarritz.  After 
some  good  chaffing  of  the  British  golfer's  behaviour 
abroad,  he  remarked  half  regretfully,  "  I  have 
never  seen  Biarritz."  But  he  instantly  added, 
"  I  can  read  about  it,  and  that  is  better.  I  don't 
need  to  try  the  water,  or  to  face  the  line  of  waiters 
when  I  leave."  He  then  enlarged  upon  the  last 
draAvback,  telling  us  of  the  trick  which,  on  leaving 
a  foreign  hotel,  an  acute  "  Yankee  "  had  succeeded 
in  playing.  He  ran  the  gauntlet  of  the  row 
of  expectant  waiters,  bowing  politely  to  each ; 
and  upon  reaching  the  head-waiter,  after  con- 
gratulating him  on  the  excellence  of  his  staff, 
disappeared  through  the  portico  before  the  empty- 
handed  officials  had  recovered  from  their  bewilder- 
ment. 

In    the    days     of     Meredith's   kindlier   laughter 
I  came  in  for  a  good  share  of  his  railleries.     He 


RAILLERY  335 

enjoyed  a  story  I  must  have  told  him  early  in 
the  eighties,  of  some  unlucky  attempts  of  mine 
to  diminish  the  musical  ardour  of  a  professional 
pianist  whom  the  gods  had  cruelly  allotted  me 
for  neighbour.  But  the  more  kindly  teasings  date 
from  the  nineties  onwards.  Once,  Avhen  calling 
upon  him  with  Stephen,  he  told  our  friend  that 
I  had  subscribed  to  a  Dutch  fund  for  the  Boer 
wounded,  and  his  way  of  betraying  my  secret  sin 
satisfied  me  that  he  was  more  amused  than  shocked 
at  this  deviation  from  the  lines  of  a  correct 
patriotism. 

The  richer  bestowal  of  his  genial  and  almost 
tender  mirth  came  in  the  last  years,  and  by  way 
of  letter.  When  I  last  visited  him  he  called  my 
attention  to  the  fact  that  Emile  Faguet  had  just 
published,  in  a  feuilleton  of  the  Debats,  an  important 
criticism  of  the  theory  of  laughter  set  forth  in  my 
Essay.  Meredith  followed  up  this  expression  of 
friendly  interest  in  my  writings  by  sending  me 
some  delicious  mock  imitations  of  Faguet's 
criticism.  These  were  written  in  French  and 
attributed  to  Frenchmen,  bearing  wondrous  names. 
The  pretty  pretence  was  admirably  kept  up.^ 
Besides  this  bit  of  delicious  fooling  he  sent  me 
some  characteristic  jocosities  apropos  of  a  copy 
of  my  "  Studies  of  Childhood  "  which  I  had  sent 
him,  as  well  as  of  an  article  on  "  Beauty  and 
Expression  "  which  I  published  in  the  Edinburgh 

I  A  French  scholar  told  me  that  in  these  clever  French 
compositions  there  was  only  one  unusual  word  which  could 
suggest  that  the  hand  which  penned  them  was  not  that  of  a 
Frenchman.     See  Meredith's  "  Letters,"  vol,  ii,  pp.  600-30. 


336  MY   LIFE   AND   FRIENDS 

Review.'^  I  enjoyed  it  all  immensely,  and  this 
not  merely  because  of  the  honour  which  his  atten- 
tions did  me,  but  because  I  felt  throughout  that 
Love  had  winged  his  laughter. 

A  more  serious  and  more  precious  recognition 
from  Meredith  was  won  for  two  articles  of  mine, 
one  on  "  Leslie  Stephen,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly, 
the  other  on  "  The  Sunday  Tramps,"  in  the 
Cornhill.  "  Your  article  on  Leslie  Stephen,"  he 
wrote  me,  "  traverses  the  course  of  my  knowledge 
of  him,  like  a  torch  lighting  up  the  familiar  country 
shadowed  by  the  death  "  ;  and  "your  sketch  of 
the  Tramps  will  be  a  memorial,  and  that  of  Leslie 
is  a  portrait  that  brings  him  living  before  me." 
Such  words  coming  from  so  competent  a  judge 
have  counted  among  the  highest  rewards  of  my 
literary  efforts. 

It  is  not  easy  to  say  just  what  Meredith  has 
been  to  me.  His  large  mind,  which  included 
capacities  so  diverse  as  imaginative  creation,  inter- 
pretation of  the  comic  spirit  and  sound  practical 
judgment,  appealed  to  me  on  many  sides.  His 
serene  and  hopeful  spirit  and  his  love  of  fun  drew 
me,  partly  by  what  was  akin  to  me,  partly,  too, 
by  what  was  more  alien,  though  highly  prized 
by  me.  Looking  back  on  what  I  have  reaped 
from  his  books  and  his  talks,  I  am  disposed  to 
place  him  side  by  side  with  R.  L.  Stevenson  as 
the  two  prime  fortifying  influences  in  my  later 
life.  Both  had  suffered,  and  both  struck  the 
upper  note  in  their  shout  of  "  Courage  !  " 

If  in  1871,  when  I  first  heard  his  voice,  some- 

I  See  "  Letters."  vol.  ii.  pp.  480-1,  600-2,  609,  624,  629-80. 


FAREWELL  337 

body  had  asked  me,  "  Could  you  love  Meredith  ?  " 
I  should  have  ridiculed  the  idea.  To  speak  of 
love  in  connection  with  one  so  strong,  so  master- 
ful, and  so  brilliant  would  have  seemed  imper- 
tinent. But,  as  he  himself  has  told  us,  there 
were  more  Merediths  than  one,  and  the  mature 
and  mellow  one  I  was  privileged  to  know  won 
a  love  hardly  less  intense  than  the  older  feeling 
of  admiration. 


23 


INDEX 


Academy^  The,  162 
Academy,  the  British,  242-3 
Adamson,  Professor,  184-5,  221 
Agapemone,    the,    at     Charlynch, 

33-4 
Aiager,  Canon,  175-6,  206,  247 
Aldeburgh,  hoUdays  at,  214 
Allen,  Grant,  190,' 197,  272 
Alps,  the,  125,  216-8,  232-5 
Amalfi,  156-7 
Anstey,    Mr.,   in  the    Bridgwater 

election  case,  130-1 
Armstrong,  W.  Savage,  248 
Arnold,    Matthew,    on    a    British 

Academy,  243 
Athenceuvi,  The,  168 
Athen?eum  Club,  the,  183,  291-2 

Bache,  Walter,  222 

Bagehot,  Walter,  57,  132 

Bain,   Alexander,    72,   126-7,    131, 

139,  145,  147,   163,   182-4,    186, 

189,  244-5,  247,  290 
Baptist  College,  see  Regent's  Park 
BajTies,  Spencer,  145-6,  169,  186, 

234 
Bebel,  August,  144 
Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  66 
Bellinzona,  124 
Berens,  E.,  140 
Berlin,  141-5 

Besant,  Sir  Walter,  201,  213 
Bismarck,  88,  97,  134,  141 
Blake,  Admiral,  7 
Boer  War,  the,  242,  286-7,  319-20 


Bohemia,  travels  in,  114 

Bond,  Francis,  219 

Bradlaugh,  206-8 

Bradley,  F.  H.,  163,  168,  190 

Bridges,  Dr.,  252 

Bridgwater,   in    the   forties,     3-9, 

52-8 ;    election    days   in,    56-8 ; 

disfranchised  for  corruption,  127- 

31 
Bright,  John,  55 
Bristol  and  Exeter  Railway,  4 
Browning,  Robert,  166 
Burne-Jones,  249,  265 

Cadenabbia,  160 

Capri,  153-6 

Carlyle,  269-70 

Carr,  Comyns,  164 

Gary,  Dr.,  55 

Cassel,   opera  at,  95 ;   Sunday  at, 

98 
Champneys,  Basil,  209 
Chapel-going,  20-3,  29-30,  36 
Chapman,  Dr.,  136 
Child  psychology,  study  of,  238-9 
Childhood,  the  author's,  9-45 
Cholera  epidemic,    the,    of    1849, 

25 
Christmas  in  the  forties,  17-18 
CUfford,  W.  K.,  164,  169,  181,  223, 

262,  301 
CUfford,  Mrs.  W.  K.,  249 
Clodd,  Edward,  190,  214,  272 
Cobden,  55 
Coleridge,  5,  27 


339 


340 


INDEX 


Compton,  life  at,  133 

Comte,  269-70 

Contemjjorary  Beview,   The,    162, 

193,  199,  200 
Copyright  Act,  the,  190 
CornUll  Magazine,  The,  163,  192, 

296 
Crowpill,  life  at,  39-40 
Crystal  Palace,  concerts  at,  210 

Daily  Chronicle,  The,  supports  the 
Boer  cause,  287 

Daily  Mail,  The,  reviews  the 
"  Essay  on  Laughter,"  242 

Darwin,  Charles,  134,  147,  164-5, 
223-4,  307,  310-11 

Davies,  Llewelyn,  206 

Davis,  Dr.  Benjamin,  63-4,  76 

Dickens,  37  ;  his  readings,  47 

"  Dictionary  of  National  Bio- 
graphy, The,"  301-2 

Dixon,  Hepworth,  65 

Dohring,  Herr,  145 

Dresden,  111 

Du  Maurier,  176-7,  262 

Dublin,  visit  to,  229-30 

Dubois-Eeymond,  142 

Duels  in  Germany,  93 

Edgeworth,  F.  G.,  164 

Eliot,  George,  136,  164,  181,259; 

her    Sunday   gatherings,    260-6, 

271 
"  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  145-6, 

169,  186,  251 
"  Essay  on  Laughter,"  242 
Essays,  collected,  147 
Ewald,   Professor,    76,   85-7;    his 

hatred  of    Prussia,    87-9,    98-9, 

102-3,  278 
Ewald,  Frau,  88-9,  103 
Examiner,  The,  148,  162,  185 
Eyre,  Governor,  64,  75 

Faguet,  Emile,  242,  335 


Family  life  in  the  forties,  9-25  et 
seq. 

Fiction,  excursions  into,  196;  tastes 
in,  211-12 

Fischer,  Kuno,  107 

Foot,  Harry,  64,  66,  75 

Foote,  Mr.,  prosecuted  for  blas- 
phemy, 205-8 

Fortnightly  Bevieiv,  The,  131,  133, 
137-8,  145,  162,  172,  239 

Fowler,  Professor  Thomas,  38 

"Friendly  Eivalry,"  196 

Fuller,  Sir  Thomas,  38 

Galton,  Francis,  182,  265 
Garibaldi  in  London,  70-1 
Garnett,  Dr.,  170-1,  247-8 
Germans,  one-sided  nature  of,  91 ; 

Schwdrmerei  of,  114 
Germany,  life  in,  77-109 
Glacier,  fatal  accident  on  a,  217-18 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  240 
Gnadau,  Moravians  at,  109-10 
Gottingen,  student  days  at,  76-104 
Greenwood,  Frederick,  133,  144 
Grosser  Winterburg,  the,  112-13 
Grossmith,  George  (the  first),  39 
Grote,  George,  12^ 
Grote  Chair  of  Philosophy,  228 
Gurney,  Edmund,  166,  210,  224 
Guy  Fawkes  Day  at    Bridgwater, 

41 

Halle,  student  days  at,  105-9 
Hamilton,  Sir  William,  73 
Hampstead,  life  in,  173  ;  the  Heath, 

174;    society    in,    177,    198    et 

seq. 
"  Hampstead  Tramps,"  the,  208-9 
Hanover,  annexation  of  by  Prussia, 

85,  91 
Harcourt,  Sir  William,  184-5 
Hardy,  Thomas,  195 
Harlesden,  life  at,  162-9 
Harper's  Magazine,  196 


INDEX 


341 


Harrison,  Frederic,  165,  222,  262, 

307 
Heiligkreuz,  118-19 
Heine,  82,  98 
Heintze,  Frau,  97-8,  126 
Helmholtz,  139,  142,  144 
Henle,  Herr,  94 
Hertz,  Mrs.,  165-7 
Hei/se,  Paul,  194 
Hodgson,    Shadworth,    164,    215, 

226,  238,  249,  252-3 
Hopkinson,  Sir  Alfred,  241 
Howells,  W.  D.,  195 
"  Howlers,"  80 

"Human  Mind,  The,"  228,  317 
Hutton,  E.  H.,  184-5,  206 
Huxley,  146,  169-70,  200,  206 
Hyndman,  H.  M.,  198 

"  Illusions,"  189 

Innsbruck,  117 

International  Congress  of  Psy- 
chology, 230-2 

Italy,  travels  in,  120-5,  149-61; 
later  years  in,  254-6 

Jackson,    Dr.    J.    Hughlings,    172, 

202 
James,  Henry,  195 
James,  WiUiam,  60,  221,  228,  249- 

50,  252 
"  James    Sully   Philosophical   and 

Psychological  Club  of  Kochester, 

U.S.A.,"  238 
Japanese  students,  222 
Jenner,  Sir  William,  203 
Jevons,  Stanley,  177,  182,  184,  223 

oachim,  69 
Joachim,  Frau,  144 
Journalism,  137 
Jowett,  Benjamin,  218-19 

Kennedy,  Sir  Alexander,  213,  229 
Kinglake,  A.  W.,  56-7,  66 ;  unseated, 
128 ;  131 


Kneipen  ov  Kommers  a,t  Gottingen, 

92 ;  at  Halle,  106,  108-9 
Knibb,  William,  55 
Knowles,  James,  193-4,  199-200 

Lachmann  family,  the,  143 

Ladd,  Professor,  237 

Lafitte,  Pierre,  270 

Leech,  John,  171 

Leipzig  Fair,  110 

Leland,  Charles,  162 

Lewes,  Charles,  175,  213-4,  261 

Lewes,  G.  H.,  64,   136,   145,  147, 

165,  181,  223,  259-66 
Liszt,  69 
Lombroso,  231 
Lotze,  86,  99,  100,  184 
Lynch,  T.  T.,  67. 

Maas,  Max,  223 

Macdonell,  George,  246 

Macready,  43 

Manns,  August,  210 

Marks,  A.,  234 

Martineau,  James,  230 

Massey,  Gerald,  51-2 

Maxse,  Admiral,  Meredith's  letters 
to,  134,  323 

Medley,  William,  76-7,  98 

Mendips,  the,  5 

Meredith,  George,  106,  133-5,  172, 
206,  240,  242,  249,  261,  269,  307, 
311,  314-15  ;  at  Box  Hill  (323- 
37) ;  conversational  powers,  324- 
8;  declining  years,  330-2;  ideas 
as  to  the  German  Peril,  333 

Metaphysical  Society,  the,  199-201 

Miall,  Edward,  55 

Mill,  J.  S.,  64,  72-4,  107,  136,  160, 
183,  332 

Mind,  148,  164-5,  244,  287 

Minto,  William,  148,  164,  184-7 

Moffat,  Dr.,  55 

"  Monday  Pops "  at  St.  James's 
Hall,  68-9 


342 


INDEX 


Moravians  at  Gnadau,  109-10 
Morgenstern,  Dr.,  78-9,  81 
Morison,  Cotter,  213,  267-76 
Morley,  John,  131 ;  offers  Mr.  Sully 
a  post  as  tutor  and  secretary,  182 ; 
133-8,  145 ;  edits  the  Pall  Mall 
Gazette,  183;  184,  186,  268 
Morris,  William,  198,  249 
Munich,  115-16 
Miinsterberg,  Hugo,  228 
Music,  early  love  of,  48-9 
Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  230,  820 

Naples,  150-2 
Napoleon  III,  140 
Neurological  Society,  202 
Newman,  F.  W.,  85 
Newman,  ,T,  H,,  269 
Nineteenth  Centiirij,  The,  169,  193 
Norway,  visits  to,  219-21 
Nuremberg,  115 

Orrinsmith,  Mrs.,  249 

Osborn,  Colonel,   209,  224-7,  252, 

273-4 
"  Outlines  of  Psychology,"  190-1 
Oxford,  visit  to,  145 

Paestura,  157-8 

Paget,  Sir  James,  263 

Pall  Mall  Gazette,  The,  183-4, 192 

Paris,  140 

Parnell  Commission,  the,  208 

Parret  River,  the,  4,  10;    bore  on 

the,  40-1 
Paul,  Kegan,  165,  168 
Payn,  James,  192,  801 
"  Pessimism,"  167-9,  188 
Piatti,  69 

Pitt-Eivers,  General,  239 
Plymouth  Brethren  at  Bridgwater, 

57-8 
Pollock,  Sir  Frederick,  164,  201 
Pompeii,  152-3 
Pragmatism,  321 


Prague,  114 

Prince,  Mr.,  becomes,  "  My  Lord 
the  Prince,"  58-4 

Princeites,  the,  53-4 

Princess  Royal,  the,  in  Berlin, 
141-3 

Pro-Boers,  242,  286-7 

Prussia,  the  King  of,  88,  96 

Prussian  officialism,  77 

Prussians  in  Hanover,  the,  95-6 

Psychical  Research  at  the  Inter- 
national Congress  of  Psychology, 
230-1 

Psychology,  child,  238-9 

"  Psychology,  Outlines  of,"  190-1 

"  Psychology,  The  Teacher's  Hand- 
book of,""l91-3 

Puppet-show,  a  primitive,  18 

Quakers  in  Bridgwater,  23-4,  48-9 
Quantocks,  the,  5,  33 

Ramsay,  Sir  William,  235 

Reade,  Charles,  65 

Regent's    Park     Baptist     College, 

studying    for    the    ministry   at, 

59-75 
Bevue  PhilosoiJhi^ue,  148 
Ribot,  Th„  147-8,  184,  221,  228 
Richet,  Charles,  231,  236-7 
Richter,  80 
Ritter,  86 
Robertson,  Croom,  126,  148,  164, 

168,  182,  184,  228-9,  318 
Romanes,  G.  J.,  171,  193-4,  249 
Rome,  158,  60 
Rossetti,  249 
Rubinstein,  69 

St,  James's  Hall,  68 

St.  John's  Wood,  life  in,  169-73 

Salerno,  157 

Salmon,  Dr.,  230 

Saturday  Eeview,The, 133, 131 ,2&8 

SavUe  Club,  the,  164,  215  252 


INDEX 


343 


Saxon  Switzerland,  the,  112 

Schooldays,  26-45 

Schopenhauer,  167 

Schumann,  Mme.,  69 

"  Scientific  Optimism,"  169 

Sedgemoor,  5,  7,  27 

Shaw,  Bernard,  199 

Sicily,  254  ' 

Sidgwick,  Henry,  163,  201,  221, 
228,  230,  243,  246,  277-87,  290-1 

Smith,  Goldwin,  165 

Society  of  Authors,  Incorporated, 
the,  201-2 

Solly,  Herr,  and  family,  143 

Somerville,  Mrs,,  171 

Sorrento,  153 

Spectator,  The,  184 

Speculative  Society,  Hampstead, 
198-9 

Spencer,  Herbert,  72,  140, 145, 147, 
169,  183-4,  202,  247,  277,  283  ; 
peculiarities  of,  289-93  ;  Italian 
and  foreign  appreciation  of, 
293-4;  his  Synthetic  Philosophy, 
294-5 

Stephen,  Sir  LesHe,  160,  163,  166, 
181,  192,  209,  240,  247,  263, 
(296-315)  ;  edits  the  CornUll 
Magazine,  296-8 ;  organizes  the 
"  Sunday  Tramps,"  299-312;  edits 
the  "  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography,"  301-2  ;  at  St.  Ives, 
312  :  characteristics,  314-15  ;  his 
admiration  of  Meredith,  323 ; 
336 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  194-6, 
202,  215-16,  218,  271,  336 

"  Studies  of  Childhood,"  239,  335 

Sully  family,  the,  9 

Sully,  James,  senr,,  8-9,  14-15, 
24-5,  47-8,  54-6,  130-1 

Sully,  Mrs.,  senr.,  8,  9,  14-15,  158 

Sully,  James,  parentage  and  an- 
cestry, 8 ;  schooldays,  26-45 ; 
studies  for  the  ministry,  59-75; 


student  days  in  Germany, 
77-109 ;  early  life  in  London, 
126 ;  appointment  at  Pontypool, 
127 ;  marriage,  127  ;  employed 
by  Morley,  132  ;  literary  v/ork, 
137  et  seq. ;  teaching  appoint- 
ments, 179-80,  182;  elected 
Grote  Professor  of  Philosophy 
and  Logic,  228-9 ;  University 
honours,  236-7 ;  retirement,  259; 
life  in  Italy,  254-6 

Sully,  Mrs..  127,  134,  159-60 

Swinburne,  249 

Switzerland,  visits  to,  124-5, 
216-18,    232-5 

Symonds,  J.  A,,  146,  216-17 

Tarentella,  the,  at  Capri,  155 

Tauchnitz,  Carl,  110-11 

Taunton,  schooldays  at,  44-6 

"  Teacher's  Handbook  of  Psycho- 
logy," 191-3 

Tennyson,  199,  201,  262-3 

Ternon,  M.  and  "  Mile.,"  42-3 

Thackeray,  37 

Tholuck,  Professor,  105,  106,  109 

Thomas,  Abel,  66 

Thompson,  Mr.,  of  the  Aberdeen 
University  Press,  191 

Trinity  College,  Dublin,  Tercen- 
tenary of,  229-30 

Tymms,  T.  V.,  66 

Tyndall,  Professor,  182,  206 

Tynte,  Colonel,  56 

Tyrol,  the,  116-18 

Union,  the,  at  Eegent's  Park,  65 
University  of  London,  Convocation 

of,  203 
University  studies  in  London,  71-2 

Val  d'Annivers,  232-4 
Venice,  120-4 
Venn, John, 221 
Verona,  120 


344 


INDEX 


Vincent,  Henry,  67 

Vischer,  Professor,  101 

Volunteers,  the,  54 

Von  Hartmann,  168 

Von  Pertz  family,  the,  192-3 

Wagner,  111 

Wallaschek,  Dr.  Richard,  222 
Ward,  W.  G.,  200 
Watchet,  holidays  at,  33 
Watts,  G.  F.,  133 
Watts-Dunton,  T.,  164 
Webb,  Sydney,  199 
Weisshorn  Hotel,  232-4 
Welby,  Lady  Victoria,  249-50 
West,  Alfred,  98,  277-8 
Westermarck,  E.,  222 
Westmi7ister  Eeview,  The,  136 


Wilhelm  I,  141 

"  Will  to  Believe,  The,"  319 

Williams,  Sir  George,  51 

Williams,  John,  51 

Wilson,  E.  D.  J.,  136 

Wittekind,  108 

Wittenberg,  jubilee  of  union  with 
HaUe,  106-8 

Women,  admission  of  to  University 
studies,  203 

Women's  Training  College,  Cam- 
bridge, lectureship  at,  191-2 

Wundt,  99,  139,  168,  184,  189 

Yeomanry,  the,  54 
Yeovil,  schooldays  at,  42-3 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 
51 


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